Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Isn't Everybody Entitled to a Childhood?

http://www.reelmoviemondays.ca/images/my_kid_could_paint_that_BIG.jpg

We enjoy watching documentaries, so I got My Kid Could Paint That from Netflix. The topic of discussion is this little 4 year old named Marla who became an overnight success due to her abstract paintings. Behind her career are her mother, father, and art gallery dealer. During the course of Marla's instant success, the question of whether she's a prodigy or a fraud arises since her father is also an aspiring painter. What I found most troubling about Marla's situation is the exploitation of her by her father and the art gallery dealer (two aspiring artists). In one scene, her father describes how Marla is the painter and her brother Zane is the sculptor of the family. He has this tone and manner of an over zealous stage parent. Then, the art gallery dealer goes into detail about his frustration with the art scene and its praise for abstract art. He goes on to say how he used Marla to enter that part of the art scene that he didn't understand. Overall, it was an interesting documentary about family relationships and expectations.

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