Screening Innocence in Children’s Film

Abstract One of the defining features of childhood in Western popular culture is innocence, that state of purity or unknowing that forms the foundation for concepts like nostalgia. Innocence is an integral part of the cinematic geography of children’s films. This chapter examines the ways cinema manufactures, privileges, and interrogates notions of innocence in film. While there are numerous films made for children that do not feature children (including many animated features), this chapter focuses the discussion of innocence on select case studies of live-action films for children and families that star children. Although innocence is key to any depiction of the child—whether it is being challenged or reinforced—many of the films examined here rely on a central belief in the innocence of the child as an ontological condition, one that either remains intact, is unsettled, or lost completely.