Whoops, Your Mom Died
Photographer: OK, you’re the child of a single parent, who has struggled despite a modest income to provide you with the best she possibly could. While it’s true that you grew up in an impoverished neighborhood, she kept you off the streets and offered you a warm home with an emphasis on learning and making the world a better place. Once, when you were only six years old, she saved up for a year to take you to the nicest restaurant in town because you said you wanted to be a chef when you grew up. Now, just before this photo was taken, you discovered that your mother was struck by a vehicle on her way from her day job as a paralegal to her evening job as a nurse’s assistant, killing her instantly. Being the precocious youth that you are, you instantly realize that you’re completely alone in the world, and that what was already going to be a difficult struggle will now be even harder without this beautiful beacon of unconditional love to support and encourage you. Not only that, but you’ve just realized that your mother, in spite of her desperate attempts to save money for your college fund, was deeply in debt from her own vocational education, leaving you with no money at all.
Child Actor: How about this.
Photographer: PERFECT! Let me get my camera. Do you think you can do it again? Recapture that magic?
Child Actor: Duh. Here you go.
Photographer: Amazing. I’m nearly in tears.
Child Actor: Bam! I’ll be in my trailer playing X-Box.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
The trope of a parent’s death automatically making a child a thoughtful grown-up is irresponsible; he’s still going to be as self-centered as any other child who probably thinks he wont die, and will live forever.
The photographer’s low bar might be well-intentioned but only serves to encourage this child’s manipulative tendencies — the breezy affectations of disenfranchisement in front of the camera suggest as much. Child Actor might be able to tug at the lazy heart-strings of (white) guilt, but no amount of contrived preternatural awareness will ever make his reinforced laurel-resting any less exploiting.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
See, once you picked that title, the rest of the post became unnecessary, like you were explaining the joke. And yet you pull it off, because, you know, the explanation is funny.
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