An Examination Of Wes Anderson's Children Protagonists' Power In Social Spaces

The popular myth of "childhood innocence" has been prevalent in the American society.As a significant outlet for cultural attitudes.Hollywood films play a fairly active role in romanticizing childhood,and in portraying children or non-adults as the carefree Other lacking their own will.only as a projection of the adults' nostalgia"This is bad for the children"has become a moral and political slogan,but under the shadow of this protective discourse.the children's subjectivity and their pursuit for the cause of love and of politics are diminished.Consequently,in terms of power,children become a minority like the female.the LGBTQ,or even the black,who have been stripped of their own voices.As a widely acclaimed young "auteur director" with highly distinctive style,Wes Anderson have exhibited consistent partiality for the issues of children and childhood.Among his nine films,Rushmore(1998),Moonrise Kingdom(2012),and Isle of Dogs(2018)are featured with children protagonists,and present three narrations of the children actively fighting for their own aspirations Children are not entitled to own any space legally,and they can occupy,appropriate space or carry out other forms of interaction with space.but still this would not change the fact that space are owned and controlled by adults.This makes space a proper perspective to examine the power struggle between the children and the adults Also,all three films are titled with names of spaces.Therelore,this thesis borrows the theory from Lefebvre that all spaces are socially produced;grounded on llenri Lefebvre's definition ofspatial practice,the social spaces are further categorized into Ideological State Apparatus(ISA)and Repressive State Apparatus(RSA)with the terms borrowed from Louis Althusser.The examination of children's power in social spaces is carried out from the children protagonists' struggle with the ISAs of family,school and with the RSAs of police station.social services for orphans,and the government,etcIn his pursuit for love and ideal life.Max in Rushmore has to face the predicament coming from his lower-class family background when he tries to expand his developments and interrelationship at an elite high school.He even gets expelled from school for breaking the rules of the school in a courtship,and taken to the police station for sabotage of his rival Suitor's property.But finally after a painstaking effort to learn about true.selfless love,Max successfully makes peace with all previous enemies with the chances he creates with his talent in writing and staging incredible plays.Suzy and Sam in Moonrise Kingdom run away respectively from their own loveless families imbued with alienation and uniformity,and elope together to a secret cove which they architect into "Moonrise Kingdom" belonging only to themselves.When they are chased by the island police and Social Services,they would rather commit probable suicide together than return to the life without each other.and exhibit thorough nonccompliance towards the state apparatuses dominated by adults.Tracy in Isle of Dogs is deeply suspicious of the current government's emergent dog quarantine to battle "Dog-flu",and carries out her reasoning with self-made conspiracy wall in her bedroom every night even when the light is off.Gradually,she combs out a conspiracy theory and persuades her fellow colleagues at school newspaper to join her protest.When she attains both the curing serum and the truth to prove that the whole public health crisis is the mayor's political intrigue for dog annihilation and his re-election.she finally manages to overturn the current government and save all the innocent dogs.Tracy has demonstrated the most powerful rebellion against the state apparatuses run by adults.From Max's compromise,to Suzy and Sam's noncompliance and to Tacy's overturn.Anderson has empowered the children protagonists each with more power and stronger individuality,meanwhile,we can also catch a glimpse of the social problems of the America,like the issue of social stratification,of marriage and parenthood,of the society's alienation.etc.,from the intensifying clashes between the children and the adults,and from the perspective of the children.Through the examination of the children's power in social spaces in Anderson's films,this thesis finds that his portrayal of children exhibits the tendency of getting bolder.Adopting a relatively new research perspective of social spaces,it reveals how the children have fought with the adults-run society for their own power to pursue their own ideals and aspirations.Also.from the perspective the children,it provides a window for us to reflect on the problem regarding how we should better construct the society.