Dyson 2003 Welcome to the Jam.pdf - Oncourse

“Welcome to the Jam”
anne haas dyson
school year), the children gathered on the rug to watch Space Jam. Most of the
children had already seen this film. Vanessa, for example, had gone to the
movie with her mother; Denise had watched the video with her brother, and
Noah repeatedly viewed the video with his (blood) siblings and cousins. Thus,
the “treat” did not involve viewing the unfolding of an unknown plot but,
rather, participating in a familiar pleasure.
As the film began, many children started singing the lyrical “I Believe I Can
Fly,” which anticipates a young Michael Jordan’s flying leap to a basketball net,
and then the harder-edged “Welcome to the Space Jam,” which accompanies a
montage of a grown-up Jordan jumping to net after net in quick succession.
Group singing reoccurred throughout the film-watching, as did the dramatic
enactment of and play with character voices. There were certain well-known
voices and lines (e.g., Loony Tune character Sylvester’s “sufferin’ succotash”
or Tweety Bird’s “I thought I saw — I did, Idid”), as well as some new lines
(“Girl got some skills,” uttered by Michael Jordan about the girl with b-ball talent,
Lola Bunny) that most children enjoyed doing.
Noah and Marcel recited much of the movie’s dialogue, and Noah matched
tone, pitch, and volume almost exactly. Indeed, he did not like others to say
the lines if they lacked the appropriate expertise (i.e., if they “don’t say it
right”). Noah’s irritation may not have been simply intolerance. It was hard to
hear the movie when someone’s voice did not blend with the characters’
voices. Noah, like many children, also did not want anyone to “tell the movie”
(say what was going to happen next). This was not a matter of a child spoiling
the story, which most children knew, but, rather, of insulting others’ intelligence.
“We know!” was the appropriate response to such ostentatious behavior.
When Rita interrupted the video to clarify her own confusion about the
plot, the children reacted very differently. Rita did not know the storyline, and
the children not only tolerated but picked up on one another’s retelling efforts,
so eager were most to clarify the characters and their motivations and
fates for Rita. Later, after the video was over, Rita talked with the children
about their movie preferences (“interviewed” them, as Vanessa said), and she
also discussed the distinction between “retelling” and “summarizing” and between
spoiling stories for the uninformed and being, in general, boring (i.e.,
giving people more detailed information than they want to have).
When the video watching resumed, so too did the children’s singing, playing,
and brief conversational exchanges (e.g., about liked parts, about relatives
with names similar to characters). In addition, children engaged in
claiming identities. The boys had the only real options — even the Looney
Tunes characters are mainly male, and Lola Bunny was seen as a joke (for an
analysis of gender limitations in children’s media, see Seiter, 1993). However,
in an unusual move, no boy claimed to be Michael Jordan, and several children
positioned themselves in his family.
337