Connecting Childhood and Old Age in Popular Media by Vanessa Joosen

Author:Vanessa Joosen [Joosen, Vanessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781496815163
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 34919015
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: 2018-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 6.2. Still from Starry Starry Night, directed by Tom Shu-Yu Lin.

As the search for Grandpa’s house and Mei’s lively imagination (fueled by her grandfather’s creations) demonstrate, the elderly play a pivotal role in Starry Starry Night. Released in 2011, the film appeared during a time when Taiwanese youth were more actively asserting their independence. In light of these changes, author Liao and director Tom Shu-Yu Lin express a stirring message about the need to preserve childhood, even when it appears that this version of childhood is merely a figment of the imagination. This message is clearly articulated in the closing scene of the film, when Mei returns to school after her illness. No longer in the company of Jei, Mei reflects on the significance of her journey with her first love:

At 13, we’re very fragile. But at 13, we’re also very tough. So, before we have to face this cruel world, please be gentle with us. We don’t ask for much: a glance, a kind word, a rainstorm, a gust of wind, or just a nod of the head goodbye. It’s these little kindnesses that make us feel special.

Mei’s closing speech reinforces some of the modern views of Taiwanese youth, especially the fact that young people are fragile and “easily bruise.” Yet, at the same time, it presents childhood, especially the threshold age of thirteen, as a time of contradiction. Children like Mei are both “fragile” and “tough,” in need of both protection and greater independence. After Mei has returned home, she discovers a letter from Jei with the missing piece from the “brightest star” in her Van Gogh Starry Starry Night puzzle. As tears roll down her face, Mei concludes, “Everything passes. But before letting go. Hold on, as tight as you can.” These final lines urge young people to cling to childhood rather than rushing forward into adulthood.

The message in the closing scene of Starry Starry Night differs dramatically from the one that appears in Chang’s Wild Child. In the novel Chang makes clear that there is no place for childhood innocence in modern Taiwan, as the destructive forces of modernization have made it impossible for youth to have carefree experiences in their early years. This view is supported by scholarship in Taiwan studies, such as Ban Wang’s assertion that the globalization of Taipei has emotional, cultural, and ideological disadvantages that are bound up in the term modernity. Although modernity elicits “visions of the future [that] may promise progress, emancipation, freedom, and universal prosperity,” Wang concludes that it “is [often] little more than a euphemism to conceal the global standardization and unequal relations that pave the way for the penetration of capital into underdeveloped countries” (370). In contrast, film director Tom Shu-Yu Lin brings to life Liao’s story of childhood innocence and suggests that there is in fact a space where this innocence can still exist, even if one must fight to obtain it. The fragility of this state of innocence makes it all the more special and reinforces the idea that it is something worth holding onto.

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