The politics of children

Page 5

I'm a 37-year-old man, a single child of a single parent, who at the time of this writing has no children (though there's that summer of '87 that I can't seem to account for) and what's the one job that comes to mind that I would be completely unsuited for, other then an aerobics instructor (though I do look good in spandex , if the lighting is low enough)?

I am talking about my recent splurge of writing specifically for children in television and on the stage. And let me tell you Mr. Matthew Coon Come, running the Assembly of First Nations with more than 600 squabbling and arguing chiefs and vice-chiefs is nothing compared to the trials and tribulations of pleasing networks and producers in the fast-paced and bizarre world of entertaining and educating the little ones.

I have had some experience. I've written at least four plays for young audiences (maybe more-as I said, the summer of '87 is a little foggy). My first was a rather surprising hit called Toronto At Dreamer's Rock which, 10 years later, is still being produced and published. I affectionately refer to it as my retirement fund.

But more recently I have been engaged in the lucrative, though frustrating, world of children's television programming. Specifically, I have written three scripts for a Native-themed show involving animals, which are in production. I had a lot of fun and everybody was really nice to me . . . until the rules came down from somewhere above about what you can and cannot do on children's television. Sort of the television Ten Commandments. And some of them are bizarre. As a writer, I was only privileged to snippets of reasoning. Basically, anything beyond "don't do that" or "nice try but you can't do that with a turtle at 11 o' clock in the morning" was kept confidential. The television executive's mind works in mysterious ways.

Abbreviating the commandments, I was frequently told that you cannot have any violence, even a kick in the shin or a push. Now that kind of stuff you can almost understand. But did you know, you cannot have one character kiss another on the nose as I attempted to write in one script? It might corrupt the Aboriginal (and non-Aboriginal youth) of tomorrow. There might be rampant nose-kissing across the nation. The courts would be clogged with nasal assault cases.

Other no-nos imparted to me included the fact that you cannot have one character call another character "weird" in an effort to explore self-image problems. Not even if you show the potential consequences of such action. It seems it's better to avoid the whole situation completely. Yet, it's okay to have a male animal tug on the tail of a female animal. Am I the only one that sees some subversive subtext here?"

Luckily in theatre it's a little easier. Actually a lot easier. I can safely say that, other than the normal dramaturgical process of developing the play, I never really received any flack or limiting directives from a higher up. I even began my favorite play, Girl Who Loved Her Horses, with one of the main characters uttering a single word in astonishment: "Jesus!" Try that with the Teletubbies at 8:30 on Tuesday morning.

Granted, you still have to keep your audience in mind and what you are trying to say. Artistic freedom is artistic freedom, but spending 50 minutes of school time having characters swearing like a chief who's been caught hiring relatives or wasting time exploring the wonders of bestiality would not be advisable. That's just common sense.

Most recently, I have been working on a new young people's play titled The Boy In The Tree House, which will be seen in Winnipeg, Toronto, Saskatoon and Regina. It deals with identity, parental longing, trying to honor relatives, and vision quests.

I had not written a children's play in about five years and wasn't sure if I could capture that state of mind again. Writing for children is a unique and special talent. But as my girlfriend constantly tells me, I have nothing to worry about when i comes to thinking like a child. Oddly enough, I don't think she was the first girlfriend to tell me that.

In the play, a young boy must deal with the anniversary of the death of his Native mother by trying to embrace her culture. He does this by fasting in a tree house. His non-Native father tries to be supportive, but watching your kid starve himself up a tree tests a man's patience. In this piece, I got to explore concepts that many youths deal with. And as always, I was told the sky was the limit. Just the usual limitations when it comes to a touring show: not too many characters and try not to require a full scale castle or naval battle - they're kind of hard to tour. The only real concern I faced with this project was a kind and gentle word of advice from the artistic director informing me that people in certain parts of the Prairies are kind of serious about mention of God or the church. However they neglected to tell me if these people would be upset if the play was pro or anti-church. So in the end I steered clear of the whole thing.

But perhaps the most bizarre limitation that I was informed of did not come from any network executive or artistic director, but from the people who run kindergartens. My girlfriend taught kindergarten for four months a few years back. It was a job she loved, almost as much as she loved the kids. Even if they hugged her first, at no time were her arms or hands to touch the kids in an affectionate manner. She told me it was the hardest part of her job.

Then a few months later when I was in Labrador, I had the opprotunity to tour the schools in a Native community, including a kindergarten. Over coffee, I chatted with the teachers about my girlfriend's delimna. They informed me they had the same regulations. "But we ignore them" they happily told me. Unfortunately, I was all too aware of the reasoning behind these restrictions, and sympathetic. But another part of me wished my girlfriend could hug all these kids as much as she wnted to.