Unescorted Viewer: Then, Now and Foob
Since the very beginning of movie theaters, there have been unescorted children in the theaters. I am quoting from this article:
As with theater sixty years earlier, the image of mother and child in attendance would help to certify the safety and propriety of the nickelodeon. Some exhibitors and producers fostered this image by encouraging women to bring the children. Theaters in Lewiston, Maine in 1907 offered teddy-bear souvenirs, checked baby carriages, and encouraged parents to send their children unattended. Some mothers apparently agreed and let their boys go unattended.
A large percentage of the regular audience were children. Estimates of children in the audience ranged from 20 percent in Detroit and Madison, Wisonsin to two-thirds in Pittsburgh and Portland, Oregon. Reports from New York and Cleveland complained that large numbers of these children were unescorted by adults. The thought of unchaperoned teenage girls in particular raised fears of sexual promiscuity. A Chicago Tribune reporter in 19807 observed a downtown nickelodeon at 6 p.m. “composed largely of girls from the big department stores who came in with bundles under their arms.” The reporter’s concern was that they made “undesirable acquaintances [men] of mature age.”
Even back in the early days, there were those who tried to crack down on unescorted children. Bill Clinton tried it back in 1999, saying, "Too often children do get past the ticket counter unescorted and under-age..." Even this year, there are movie theaters trying to deal with the problem.
Personally, I would never, ever send 2 6-year-old kids into a movie theater by themselves. I always go with my kids to see the movies they want to see, and some of them are sheer torture. This is not a problem Lynn Johnston seems to have in today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse, as she draws Elly Patterson dropping off Michael and Lawrence and then picking them up after the movie. I know parents have been doing this since 1907, but that doesn’t mean I like it.
As with theater sixty years earlier, the image of mother and child in attendance would help to certify the safety and propriety of the nickelodeon. Some exhibitors and producers fostered this image by encouraging women to bring the children. Theaters in Lewiston, Maine in 1907 offered teddy-bear souvenirs, checked baby carriages, and encouraged parents to send their children unattended. Some mothers apparently agreed and let their boys go unattended.
A large percentage of the regular audience were children. Estimates of children in the audience ranged from 20 percent in Detroit and Madison, Wisonsin to two-thirds in Pittsburgh and Portland, Oregon. Reports from New York and Cleveland complained that large numbers of these children were unescorted by adults. The thought of unchaperoned teenage girls in particular raised fears of sexual promiscuity. A Chicago Tribune reporter in 19807 observed a downtown nickelodeon at 6 p.m. “composed largely of girls from the big department stores who came in with bundles under their arms.” The reporter’s concern was that they made “undesirable acquaintances [men] of mature age.”
Even back in the early days, there were those who tried to crack down on unescorted children. Bill Clinton tried it back in 1999, saying, "Too often children do get past the ticket counter unescorted and under-age..." Even this year, there are movie theaters trying to deal with the problem.
Personally, I would never, ever send 2 6-year-old kids into a movie theater by themselves. I always go with my kids to see the movies they want to see, and some of them are sheer torture. This is not a problem Lynn Johnston seems to have in today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse, as she draws Elly Patterson dropping off Michael and Lawrence and then picking them up after the movie. I know parents have been doing this since 1907, but that doesn’t mean I like it.
posted by howard at 9:54 PM
8 Comments:
Neither do I; not only does expose the Mikes, Lawrences and Lizzies of the world to a needlessly unacceptable level of risk, it demonstrates a lack of concern for the kiddies. Elly is not only saying "I'm not worried about your safety", she's saying "I'm too God-damned big a deal to be seen with you."
Even in those quotes, I think by "children" they meant kids who were 10 to 16. But 6 year olds? I'd think they'd be too young to even enjoy it, being alone like that with a bunch of strangers would be scary.
The thing about "unchaperoned teenage girls" is a laugh though. Oh noes 15 year old girls are not being kept under lock and key, surely they will immediately have sex with someone or other! The fear of female sexuality is just blazing from the page. I sure as heck went "unchaperoned" to movies when I was a teenager.
Clio,
Oh noes 15 year old girls are not being kept under lock and key, surely they will immediately have sex with someone or other! The fear of female sexuality is just blazing from the page.
And yet the same people turn around and squeal self-righteously about the Taliban.
DreadedCandiru2
Elly is not only saying "I'm not worried about your safety", she's saying "I'm too God-damned big a deal to be seen with you."
Oftentimes when we look at strips, we ask the question, “Where’s the kids?” Lynn will focus the strip on things going on with the adults, which is important to her, without taking into account that by putting the adults in that situation, the children are wandering about. We’ve seen it with the first year reprints because “Where’s Lizzie?” has been the regular question. We even saw it in the last year of the modern strip when Anthony rushed to Liz’s side when she was upset, leaving his 3-year-old daughter by herself.
Clio,
But 6 year olds? I'd think they'd be too young to even enjoy it, being alone like that with a bunch of strangers would be scary.
That’s true. I remember going to see one of the Harry Potter movies with my daughter, when she was about that age, and she definitely wanted a parent there during the scary sequences…to escort her to the bathroom until the scary part was over.
Oh noes 15 year old girls are not being kept under lock and key, surely they will immediately have sex with someone or other!
In 1907, I am sure this was a commonplace fear. It was still during a time when proper young ladies required an escort of some sort. Etiquette books of the day go into great detail about the situation of men calling on ladies and the proper procedure to present your card, yourself and the placement of the escort. I can’t imagine an unescorted lady being smiled upon in that day.
The fear of female sexuality is just blazing from the page. I sure as heck went "unchaperoned" to movies when I was a teenager.
Absolutely. I love the old etiquette books which went to great lengths about young ladies avoiding even showing an exposed ankle to men, for fear of igniting their lust. In 1907 if nickelodeons were known to be places where single, young ladies might be running about unescorted; that might attract men, for lack of any other place. Even today, I have certainly seen teenaged boys hanging around movie theaters for the purpose of running into teenaged girls. That much hasn’t changed since 1907. The acceptance of female sexuality has made remarkable changes in the last 100 years.
According to some "nostalgic/good ol' days" websites I've found about the lost era of the Saturday morning Kiddie Matinee, there not only was a time when children in the six years old age group were sometimes left without adults in massive groups at the theater, but some addle-brained rosy-tinted glasses types long for the return of such thinking.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say such people also long for the return of concrete-paved playgrounds and "boys will be boys" hazing.
I can’t imagine an unescorted lady being smiled upon in that day.
Young ladies did not go about unescorted in Victorian England. (Most of the U.S. had significantly less stringent mores, and also, married and older women could go shopping on their own, with servants, or with friends, and it was fine.) But most women and girls weren't "ladies", the middle or upper class. A lot of this sexual fear was fear of working girls: attempting to impose middle-class mores on them, attempting to shield those "pure", "innocent" middle and upper-class girls from bad influences, and of course, fear that if young women were available, middle and upper-class men would be seduced away from their wives and "dirtied", or, for the other side politically, exploit vulnerable young women. Sexual fear and class fear are fascinatingly intertwined.
Even in 1907, some (not all, certainly) young women used to buy those etiquette books to make fun of them. Sort of like how many young women of my generation bought The Rules to laugh at it.
As a teenage girl, one reason my friends and I spent time at the mall was certainly to run into teenage boys. We then did horrible things like see movies together, eat at the food court together, and prowl around the mall in groups 4 across and 2 deep. I sometimes think my friends and I kept our local mall's Orange Julius stand in business.
Bill Clinton was talking about unaccompanied children going to R-rated movies. Since the film Mike and Lawrence were watching would probably have been PG* in 1980, the issue Clinton was talking about was fundamentally different.
The question is whether young people going to films alone will be at risk of bad influences on the screen (as with the R-rated movies) or at risk of being kidnapped/molested by someone in the theater (as was the concern with this FBOFW strip).
*(by U.S. standards; I don't know the Ontario ratings system off hand)
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