When an 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 PTSD trauma.
Yes, I have a bit of a problem with the entertainment industry using infants or toddlers. … 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.
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?!
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.
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, pg.123).
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).
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.
When an 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 PTSD trauma.
Yes, I have a bit of a problem with the entertainment industry using infants or toddlers. … 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.
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?!
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.
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, pg.123).
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).
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.