Babies in Movies

Mr. B and I recently watched a movie called Daltry Calhoun. It was a sweet little movie, featuring Johnny Knoxville, who made a pleasant presentation of Daltry. It's not really about Daltry, exactly, it's more about his daughter, June, who finds her father when she is 14, and comes to live with him because her mother is dying. She is the narrator of the story. Mr. B picked it up from the video store because the DVD case said the character of June had been homeschooled.

I'm not recommending the movie to anyone (but it was a sweet little film aside from the fact that it was rated PG-13 and I'm not saying I agree with that rating). The reason I'm even mentioning it is because of the baby crying in an opening scene.

In that scene, the parents are yelling at each other, and June, as a baby, is in a playpen, just crying her heart out. I sat silent for a second, and then I said, "I cannot believe they are just letting that child cry." And Mr. B said, "I was just thinking the same thing."

It seems odd somehow, that, in the making of a film, one can't even appear to hurt an animal, but it's okay to let a baby cry. To actually put a crying baby in someone's arms, or a playpen (or whatever), and just let them cry.

And I know that they did just that because they showed it in the bloopers. As a matter of fact, the baby wanted his mother, or whomever put the child in the playpen, so badly, that the baby attempted to get *out* of the playpen, almost hitting the ground, but Johnny Knoxville ran over and caught the baby. It's all on tape.

I have watched other films in which there was a baby crying, and each time, something seemed wrong about it. But this time, seeing the actual outtake, it just seems incredibly wrong. And even a little cruel and mean.