Dimension X: The Veldt (Ray Bradbury, adapted by Ernest Kinoy)

[james_davis_nicoll]

The Veldt

In a future when the whims of little children are indulged far more than they should be, a well-meaning pair of parents becomes concerned over what they see manifesting in their children's virtual-reality-enabled, telepathic nursery. As turns out, they were not worried enough.

Another example of the children as monsters genre that was so popular in the 1950s. Looking at Bradbury's reflexive nostalgia and his distrust of kids and anything new, it's easy to see how ended up the person he did.

Comments

the Baby Boom

[(Anonymous)]

kids must have been everywhere. In the US/Canada nobody under 70 is old enough to remember this. But if you travel to countries where the TFR is still high, it does strike you: kids are *everywhere*.

this is fine if you like kids! not everyone does. (And even people who generally do, have days.)


Doug M.

Re: the Baby Boom

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that the unstructured free-range childhood that people nostalgically laud today (and which Bradbury had nice things to say about as well, even while it still existed) might in part have been a simple matter of demographics. In the mid-20th century, maybe it wasn't possible to keep children under close adult supervision all the time because the necessary workforce simply didn't exist.

Didn't well-to-do people complain about the servant problem a lot? In earlier times, the non-poor would have had nannies and boarding schools.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I think our parents just didn't think we needed constant supervision. My parents didn't have nannies and boarding schools in their childhood, which dates back to the nineteen-teens and 'twenties. Nor did Wife's, from the twenties and thirties.

Re: the Baby Boom

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

The unstructured free-range childhood of the past was a maelstrom of unreported physical, sexual, and mental abuse, taking place in an incredibly poor era. No one is nostalgic for the childhood of Emmett Till.

What you see is survivorship bias, promoted by people who fear change, and maybe it was the last time in their lives some of these people truly felt loved.

Re: the Baby Boom

[connactic.livejournal.com]

"No one is nostalgic for the childhood of Emmett Till."

Sadly, I don't think that this is true.

[wakboth.livejournal.com]

I agree about nostalgia, but I definitely disagree about Bradbury having any particular "distrust of kids". If his fiction is anything to go by, he both loved and feared people, including kids.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

James enjoys smashing icons.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

This was the precursor to far too many malfunctioning holodeck stories. If not great literature, at least Bradbury was not ripping off the previous season's Star Trek.