Kids

[Doug Millison]

Kids scared me when I saw it on its initial theatrical run here, 
looking forward as I was at that time to my son's near-future entry 
into his teen years (he's 13 now).  Having survived a rather troubled 
adolescence myself, it wasn't the drugs and sex that disturbed me so 
(although I do think the kids in the movie were moving rather fast 
with regard to those vices compared to my crowd back in the early 
60s), it was the flirtation, unwitting or not, with death (in the 
form of HIV). I did feel some discomfort at the voyeuristic nature of 
this movie experience, like picking at a wound, but not enough to 
make me leave the theater.

I think the portrayal of these kids is not that far from the way 
Pynchon depicts children as victims of adults and a world ruled by 
the necessities of Capital and War, although lacking Pynchon's 
layering and nuance. After all, where does the malt liquor and  pot 
come from? The kids don't manufacture it, advertise it, distribute it 
to the corner liquor store. Where, but in the media created by their 
elders, do the kids learn their shocking and risky behaviors?

Terrance says, "Not only are children (and almost everyone else in GR,
including TS) not innocent, they all want to be victims. Victims of 
sodomy, the whip, rape,  and most of the victims are victimizers too, 
yes, even TS."  I haven't gone through the novel to double-check 
this, but if it's true, I'd argue that Pynchon presents the children 
in this way as an indictment of the society that shapes them. 
Throughout his canon, he shows a high degree of sensitivity to the 
way society and adults abuse and destroy children.  If "they all want 
to be victims" it's only because they have learned to want nothing 
else.



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