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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 1, 2026

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a live-action film in which the protagonist is a prepubescent child (e.g. Home Alone, the Harry Potter films) is not

Absolutely. Fuck any real representation and wish-fulfillment for ~10% of the population. Self-actualization should be confined to grownups only.

(Ironically, most kids and teens in animation are usually voice-acted by grown women; the few notable exceptions to that off the top of my head being TAWOG, Chowder, and the Iron Giant.)

You can fix most of the other issues with payment later or with some other contrivance, but I'm firmly in the 'stay in Omelas' camp here; the ideal number of burnt-out child stars in a healthy society is not 0 specifically for that reason.

"But muh creative freedom" is a nonsense complaint here, because what you're suggesting would completely destroy the ability to have sitcoms that feature families (alongside, uh, most of the Spielberg catalogue). Erasing portrayals of that from TV and film because it's Unsafe will surely help TFR.

Bluey somewhat famously uses an anonymous pair of actual kids as voice actors for at least the two main child characters. Perhaps that's a reasonable balance?

Actually, MLP G4 does this as well for 3 characters in particular, come to think of it.

Perhaps that's a reasonable balance?

No, it really isn't.

I get that nobody really watches sitcoms any more, but I'm really not interested in making The Cosby Show or Home Improvement (or Two and a Half Men) illegal to produce simply because there's significant value in retaining an environment that can produce them.

I think removing the conditions that make filming Stranger Things or Terminator 2 (or IT, Super 8, ET, etc.) possible/practical would be harm to broader culture that far outweighs the higher variance in outcomes the child actors in them have as-is. You're not picking an adult up off the back of a dirtbike they're too big for and then CGI-ing it into something else.