
Contents
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The Child-Centred Film as Experiential Modernism The Child-Centred Film as Experiential Modernism
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Chaplin’s The Kid as Prototype Chaplin’s The Kid as Prototype
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The Cop as Signifier of the Urban The Cop as Signifier of the Urban
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The Kid as Troublemaker The Kid as Troublemaker
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The Cop as Comedic Foil The Cop as Comedic Foil
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The Cop as Benevolent The Cop as Benevolent
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The Cop as Immigrant The Cop as Immigrant
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Conclusion Conclusion
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Notes Notes
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Bibliography Bibliography
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7 The Cop and the Kid in 1930s American Film
Get accessPamela Robertson Wojcik is Professor and Chair of the Department of Film, TV and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame. She is most recently author of Gidget: Origins of a Teen Girl Media Franchise (Routledge 2021) and Fantasies of Neglect: Imagining the Urban Child in American Film and Fiction (Rutgers University Press 2016) and co-editor of Media Crossroads: Intersections of Space and Identity (Duke University Press 2021).
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Published:20 April 2022
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Abstract
This chapter examines some of the numerous moments in 1930s films when kids encounter the police. In films starring the Dead End Kids, Shirley Temple, Jane Withers, Jackie Cooper, kids are seen freely wandering urban streets, having encounters with adults, and frequently running into the police. Rather than treat the children as innocents who need protection from the streets, these films view kids as miscreants and troublemakers; their presence on city streets taken for granted, but not welcome. These narratives trouble traditional notions of childhood by representing children as tough, street-smart, experienced, and not tethered to family or institutional life. At the same time, they offer a different view of police, showing them as neither wholly benevolent nor as threats, but as largely ineffectual figures. Crucially, they show cops and kids as adjacent figures in the public sphere, mutually aware of each other and in frequent contact.
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