KidLit Forum

As, we have already discussed, the second option for our forthcoming exam is
The analysis of a film with a minority and/or diference issue,
where you should connect to the theoretical basis of the discipline (subaltern studies, gender, class, race, crip and able-bodiedness studies) as well as to other similar treatments of the issue in literature.

Here we go, in no particular order:


Lilo and Stitch I and II
- a Disney animation film film with an "ugly duckling theme" and little girl who is bullied by her class mates. This girl finds a perfect pet, who happens to be of not-so-terrestrial origin.

Watch a . It all happens in Hawaii and has an adorable funny Elvis presley sub-theme. Great for rock music & SF lovers.

In Ella Enchanted, the heorine becomes an active defendant of the cause of the vulnerable minority of the Giants, (yeas, vulnerable ) who are portrayed as benign dancing Gypsies. A similar stereotype rules over the Elves, considered to be just great singers.

Zebra, Racing Stripes - another animal movie, where a zebra is the obvious underdog among racing horses.

The Point, known in Romania as Oblio - a great funky animation in the style of the Yellow Submarine, the film celebrating the Beatles experience. It is about the quintessential difference: in the land of pointed heads, this child is born with a round head... the horror!

Lucas, the Ant Bully - nominally an animal movie, this film also shows how bullying at school and outside it can really grow into a problem.

An analysis of (the relative absence) of minority themes in American fims can be read .

The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Another Disney classic. The ultimate physical diformity meets non-classical beauty.

Persepolis - more of a YA film, it deals with religious intolerance in the once democratic Iran, now turned into fundamentalist theocracy. Through the eyes of a young girl.

Watch trailer .

Billy Eliot

A boy pushed by his father to take boxing classes. He is attracted by the other kind of activity taking place in the same hall.
This film is not only about gender stereotyping, but also about class (its portrayal of the background of the miners' stikes in the 1980s in the UK is brilliant) and also sexual orientation.

Maman est chez le coiffeur / Mother is at the Hairdresser's
A crumbling family, the feeling of abandonment, an excess of imagination and desire to escape -- this is an explosive cocktail in a vulnerable adolescent, that this film examines.

Bee Season

A girl with a talent for spelling learns to overcome her isolation and insecurity by participating in a spelling bee contest.