Joey Magidson
Welcome back to the Awards Radar Podcast. In each episode, Editor Joey Magidson (that’s me!) will be joined by some of the staff of Awards Radar to talk about the latest in film, television, and entertainment in general. The show will obviously have an awards season slant to it, but we won’t forget about other movies and shows, that’s for sure!
For episode 281, I’m joined once again by my co-host Myles Hughes, with producer Steve Prusakowski working behind the scenes. It’s our final Oscar predictions episode, folks! All of the categories are covered, with the vast majority of them getting at least some manner of debate. My picks are here, in advance of tomorrow’s big final predictions piece. We also talk a bit more about The Bride! (reviewed here) now that Myles has seen it, but the Academy Awards are our focus today. You can also find the mathematical statistics for the Oscar categories in my piece here earlier today, so that’s a helpful tool as well.
As always my friends and faithful listeners/readers, I do hope you all enjoy the latest episode of the Awards Radar Podcast, our 281st one to date (here’s to many more). Of course, feel free to revisit the previous installments by clicking the Podcast tab (here) on the top of the page. Plus, listen to us on Apple Podcasts (iTunes), Spotify, and other platforms. More to come each and every single week, so from the bottom of my heart, thank you for listening!
When an Oscar or other acting award nominee wins and accepts the prize at the podium, he/she typically thanks the various other participants in the relevant film’s creation. For me what’s always conspicuously lacking in the brief speech is any mention of the infants or toddlers used in filming negatively melodramatic scenes, let alone any potential resultant harm to their very malleable psyches, perhaps even a childhood post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD).
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Long before reading Sigmund Freud’s or other academics’ theories/thoughts on early-life trauma, I, while cringing, was (still am) astonished at how the producers and directors of negatively hyper-emotional big-/small-screen ‘entertainment’ could comfortably conclude that no psychological harm would come to their infant/toddler ‘actors’ as they screamed in bewilderment.
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Cannot one logically conclude by observing their turmoil-filled facial expressions that they’re perceiving, and likely cerebrally recording, the hyper-emotional scene activity around them at face value rather than as a fictitious occurrence? More so, how could the parents of those undoubtedly extremely upset infants/toddlers allow it?!
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Admittedly, I’d initially presumed there had to be a reliable educated consensus within the entertainment industry and psychology academia that there’s little or no such risk, otherwise the practice would logically and compassionately have ceased. But then I became increasingly doubtful of the factual accuracy of any such potential consensus.
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Contemporary research reveals that, since it cannot fight or flight, a baby stuck in a crib on its back hearing parental discord in the next room can only “move into a third neurological state, known as a ‘freeze’ state … This freeze state is a trauma state” (Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology and How You Can Heal, pg.123).
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Also known is that the unpredictability of a stressor, and not the intensity, does the most harm. When the stressor “is completely predictable, even if it is more traumatic — such as giving a [laboratory] rat a regularly scheduled foot shock accompanied by a sharp, loud sound — the stress does not create these exact same [negative] brain changes” (pg. 42).
If allowed to continue for a sufficient amount of time, the absorption of such traumatic experiences will cause the brain to improperly develop. It can readily be the starting point towards a childhood, adolescence and adulthood in which the brain uncontrollably releases potentially damaging levels of inflammatory stress hormones and chemicals, even in non-stressful daily routines.
The entertainment industry’s misuse of animals during filming rightfully isn’t tolerated as a general rule; and, likewise, it should not use infants and toddlers in adversely hyper-emotional drama — especially if substitutes, such as mannequin infants and/or computer-generated imagery (CGI), can be used more often.
Well, here you go: