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To Forge the Machine: Feeding a Monster in Kevin McCallister HOME ALONE is Hollywood's most visceral portrayal of the perversion of preadolescent psychosexuality in service to abusive parent figures. It's a blueprint for the effective use of negative reinforcement on someone who is made to love for it. Kevin's life is made from the outset to be one of fear. Fear of a critical mother, fear of an overbearing father, fear of his tyrannical brother Buzz, fear of a night alone with the incontinent Fuller, fear of Marley (the man who shovels the sidewalks,) fear of the furnace downstairs. Physical and emotional abuse from his family is connotated throughout the entire first act of the film. Marxist analysis of a bourgeoisie child living in fear has been performed already, but in this author's view such a reading covers half of a far more interesting story: Home Alone is not merely a story about a rich child and impoverished adults, but an abused child learning to abuse in turn the easiest possible targets. After the intial jubilation from the departure of his family, Kevin settles into the prototypical routine of the depressed: watching TV or otherwise seeking amusement all day in an increasingly unkempt house and never leaving the house even to eat, having all his meals delivered to the door and never looking at the driver. That such jubilation gives way to aimless anomie so quickly is played for laughs, but one is reminded of the old saw, "Comedy is tragedy that happens to others." But for petty drama padding out the close of the first act, such as the rush of stealing Buzz's life savings to certain--and horrible!--consequences, Kevin's does little but watch TV. And wait. Kevin dresses in the clothes of his father and older siblings, reterritorializing his body alternately in the form of his tormentors or archetypes received from the TV which gives him such comfort, and begins to overcome his anxieties when the fundamental antagonists of the film are introduced: The Wet Bandits. As clearly characterized ex-convicts they too assume the guise of their abusers, to wit, the police. This creates a highly important subtextual linkage between Harry, Marv, and Kevin. They've all been hurt by groups of people more powerful and influential than them. Indeed, class arguments and age aside, it's arguable the protagonist and antagonists have more in common with each other than the protagonist and his family. However, upon learning of the Wet Bandits' plot to rob his house, Kevin undergoes a crisis. While typically the material import of the robbery again highlights class issues, such superficial analysis ignores the far larger violation: The desanctfication of Kevin's site of abuse. The Wet Bandits, abused as they were are characterized as abusers themselves. To blithely enter the house and do what they will with Kevin--the sexual implications of ex-convicts from the American prison system, a lithe young blond boy and their desire to take him away are too blatant to ignore in honest conversation--to so easily assume at a stroke the place of Buzz, Kevin's father, and all his other tormentors would trivialize his pain. This, he cannot abide, and consitutes an assault not just on young McCallister's person, but his reality. As Kevin himself later said in the sequel, "Another Christmas in the trenches." For the first time Kevin feels the loss of his reliably and securely hurtful family. For the first time Kevin seeks connection. He meets Marley at church, while praying for his family's early return. They share a brief moment of lonliness and estrangement and rather than seek connection in someone who feels as he does, Kevin instead is inspired to rush back home to defend the location of his childhood trauma. The TV he so compulsively watches to escape serves as his inspiration. The tools and possessions of the family that has harmed him serve as materials to defend their honored place in Kevin's childhood trauma. The unleashing of the ad hoc defense system is glorious. Rather than seek commonality in these new figures who understand Kevin's anxieties, Kevin inscribes the pain he feels himself onto Harry and Marv with expert precision gained over his eight years of life and education. Every shred of anger comes out of Kevin in his sadistic devices visiting enough harm onto the Wet Bandits to kill a man a dozen times over. At last, Home Alone reveals itself: A coming of age movie. A small boy temporarily ascending to the position previously occupied only in his nightmares by those who hurt him and finding himself equal to the station. Eventually in the way common to narrative film the third act crisis has Kevin against a wall while the Wet Bandits leer at him, only to be saved by Marley and his swinging shovel. His work is quick and clean and in stark contrast to the drawn-out sadism of Kevin necessary though it may have been on account of Kevin's small size. The interpersonal gulf between Kevin and Marley is highlighted by this difference in methods, and indeed we never see Marley again for the rest of the series so removed is he from Kevin's experience. Much better to see the Wet Bandits delivered safely into the hands of their abusers--the police and fellow convicts and so its only fitting this closes the penultimate sequence. Kevin is finally and joyously reunited with the family who hurts him time and again just the way he likes. Not a few seconds after they've returned Buzz is heard upstairs. "Kevin?! What did you do to my room?" The eloquent promise of fraternal discipline never sounded so good.
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Jan 18, 2011 08:02
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 09:08 |
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German Joey posted:hey editing for spelling just isn't fair. its just not fair! my thing has a whole bunch of misplaced words and grammar errors or whatever but you dont see me cheating abd editing my post just b/c im not drunk anymore.
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Jan 19, 2011 09:31
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