Adult-level Co-viewing

5.2.4 Co-viewing with Questions

On occasions, throughout the project, Phoebe and I both asked questions of the children about what they thought was going on in the movie they were watching. Firstly, co-viewing with questions supplemented their existing interest in naming things on the screen: one of us would ask “what’s that?” or “what’s happening?” which might or might not receive a reply, but established a practice of asking questions about what was being watched. This encouraged the children to ask the same types of question themselves, or simply to identify characters, objects or actions even if nobody had asked a question. The exchanges between Connie and Phoebe during the first viewing of Baboon on the Moon illustrate this (see transcript in Section 4.3.2).

Later, when I was more often the only adult present for most or all of a viewing event, I

cautiously began to ask more complex questions, for example seeking modality judgments with my “is it a real mouse?” question, which I first asked Connie (aged 2;7) about the mouse in Animatou on her seventh viewing (see Figure 3.26) I was so taken by her immediate, amused response that it is “a pretend mouse” that I asked similar questions again several times in relation to other movies. When they began habitually to choose movies from the Animagine or Starting Stories DVDs as part of the ritual of being at our house, my questions became more ambitious. In the 12^th viewing of Animatou I paused the DVD several times throughout the film and asked several questions, much to Alfie’s excited response and Connie’s irritation (see Section 3.4.3). This “teacherly” behaviour emerged from my professional experiences with older children’s viewings of non-mainstream movies (see Section i): I would probably have done it even more had I not been trying, at least most of the time, to maintain my role as unobtrusive observer. From early on in the Animatou viewing sequence I began asking “what happened?” at the abrupt end of the film: to the extent that eventually the children started asking it

themselves in a ritualistic way at the end of each viewing of the movie.

5.2.5 Adult-level Co-viewing

On other occasions, adults would watch with the children but exchange comments and other responses such as groans or laughter, to which the children seemed to pay little attention. There is an example of this adult-level co-viewing in Section 3.2.3; a more extended example occurred in a viewing of the “Step in Time” sequence from Mary Poppins (Dir. Stevenson, US 1964) which

Phoebe had invited us to watch with the children at their house, following her earlier observation of them being fascinated by it (Figure 5.9):

Figure 5.9: Connie (aged 2;4) concentrates on Mary Poppins as the adults laugh and comment

Terry, Phoebe and I all giggle over the excesses of this musical number (“It doesn’t know when to stop, does it?” Terry comments at one point) while both children – viewing it for the second time – concentrate intensely. Alfie stands close to the screen, bracing himself with his arms on the shelf, for the whole of this sequence (see Figure 2.6); in the section where Mary Poppins joins in the dance, Alfie’s head movements clearly show that he is trying to follow the character’s rapid movements in her swirling red dress amongst the dark-clothed chimney sweeps. But despite the children’s apparent obliviousness to the adult talk, we cannot rule out the possibility that they are picking up clues about our mood and attitudes, as they would with any background adult conversation. At two points in the transcript Connie does make whispered repetitions of adult phrases that presumably intrigued her, i.e. “a load of rubbish” (echoing Phoebe’s comment before the movie had started, referring to the idiosyncrasies of the DVD menu) and “bugger off” (echoing a comment I made about the film’s bland portrayal of the working class, as the sweeps scamper merrily away into the night).

Apart from the relatively rare “self-conscious co-viewing” mode, none of these five modes was pre-planned. They emerged spontaneously, depending on the mood of the adult(s) and/or the children. Pre-planning anything with two-year-olds is always a potential challenge: the child-managing ethos of this family was to “go with the flow” wherever possible. So one of the primary formative influences on the children’s perceptions of movie-watching was that it was meant to be pleasurable and relaxed, and that their interests and preferences were often

paramount – in contrast to situations where conflicts of interest potentially occurred, such as eating dinner, going to bed or travelling on public transport. The children’s preferences were therefore a key factor in initiating both active and cuddled-up co-viewing. One or more adults would probably set the scene by arranging the seating, dishing out the bottles of milk or offering a lap to sit on, but where the children settled once they actually started watching, and how long they stayed there, would be their choice. Often, as discussed in Chapter 3 and in Section 4.1, they could spend part or all of a viewing standing or sitting alone and attentive to the screen, apparently oblivious to everything else in the room.

A transcript extract from 18^th June 2012 (twins aged 2;6) when the children were watching Dipdap indicates a typical viewing event where there is a “flow” from one mode of co-viewing to another within the space of three and a half minutes. Unusually, it starts when the viewing has already begun and I am filming as I enter the room:

CB [entering room with camera] ...'re they watching?

T Dipdap

CB [moves round to rocking chair to frame the kids, both on stool with milk bottles; T is out of frame in armchair; P is out of frame kneeling on floor looking at TV guide]

What's this?

P What's this Connie?

C [takes bottle fractionally out of mouth] Dipdap [pauses to watch with teat on lips]

C+A [both watch for 70 seconds then C resumes sucking; A's bottle drops gently as he watches attentively then resumes;

both continue to watch while sucking]

T (inaudible)

CB Yeah ... I've seen a film of primary kids watching it C [lowers bottle looks at P and chuckles; then at screen]

T Not entirely unlike the tangram film [ie Laughing Moon]

P Yeah

CB That's what I was thinking

C Mummy [wiping mouth with back of hand, frowning a little]

Bubble Dipdap! 'n bubble Dipdap!

P Well, maybe you can watch that later, on the computer with Nana

CB There's a “bubble Dipdap”?

C [resumes sucking]

P Oh! ...[sharp breath] What is it?

A [smiles and turns slightly still with bottle in mouth]

C A carrot

P Yeah![laughing]

C It big![with teat in mouth] A wabbit

A [smiles and half-turns again - recognition]

TV DIPDAAAP!(signals end of programme) P [throws TV guide on to table]

C [looks towards table]

CB Can we turn it on and see if they want anything from there?

P [reaches for DVDs] Want one of these?

CB Yeh [whispered]

P [to C+A] Which one do you want?

C [lowers bottle and looks at DVD cover with finger ready to point] This one

P You want that one?

CB OK

P Tree Fu Tom is another-

CB [to Terry] Can you turn it over to - erm - sorry erm..gimme the grey one - the grey one [reaching for remote control while still filming]

C Tee fu tom? [lowering bottle and fiddling with teat] will u tree fu tom?

CB Turn it over to..

P Tree Fu Tom isn't on right now

CB Turn it over to..

T [irritably] What, Cary?

P Watch Tree Fu Tom later C+A [resume drinking]

This was the same viewing event that a few minutes later included the children’s first viewing of Baboon on the Moon (see Section 4.3.2). The children are seated close together and watching what was one of their current favourites: Terry had never seen it before and he and I exchange comments on it (his reference to “the tangram film” is to Laughing Moon – see Section 4.1).

Dipdap involves guessing what shape is going to appear next: Phoebe and the children enjoy this, with Connie naming things while Alfie meets Phoebe’s gaze and smiles knowingly. There then follows a typical debate about what to watch next, followed by a switchover from

broadcast TV on the cable box to a DVD on a separate player, which always involved a tiresome scramble to change remote controls; complicated here by Connie threatening to demand Tree Fu Tom instead. The children watch most of Dipdap attentively and quietly, each holding their bottle tilted so that they can watch the screen while drinking their milk (Figure 5.10).

Figure 5.10: drinking and watching Dipdap (aged 2;6)

The three adults in the room are seated around them (but outside the frame of Figure 5.10):

Terry behind them, me filming from their right; Phoebe sitting on the floor close to them and to the television. The programme’s music and comical sound effects reflect the little character’s confusion and contortions as it gets entangled in the animated line that twirls around into unexpected shapes. The children are familiar with it and are ready to guess what each shape is meant to be. At the same time, the adults exchange comments. It’s a relaxed, convivial scene until the adults’ irritable exchange after the programme ends.

In each of these viewing modes, Wojciechowski and Gallese’s argument about “embodied simulation” may well be in play. They argue that “by means of the neural format we share with other human beings, and, to an extent, with some animals, as well, we can map others’ actions onto our own motor system, as well as others’ emotions and sensations onto our own viscero-motor and somatosensory systems” (Wojciechowski and Gallese 2011). In this paper they focus primarily upon neuroscience’s discovery of mirror neurons, established through finding links between visual images and cortical activity. What is important about this, they argue, is that the physical experience of simulating particular gestures, expressions or postures can give one an idea of the feelings that generate them. This phenomenon is exploited as a conscious technique in dance therapy and theatrical performance (Thom 2010). But in the quotation above and elsewhere, they hint that embodied simulation may also be triggered by mechanisms other than visual perception. It certainly seemed to me that the twins’ responses to movies sometimes related to their awareness of the physical disposition and mood of the others in the room,

especially through bodily contact with them, rather than to what they saw. Equally probable, however, is that they heard and may have registered the sounds made by others, which is what I discuss in the next section.