The Adult Children of Early Cinema

Anxiety about film's negative impact on children launched the first public debate on cinema in Germany, as members of the film reform movement struggled to contain cinema's appeal in the pre-World War I period by demanding state control of film production and reception. This essay examines how the discussion of film's effect on children cultivates a gendered view of the morally vulnerable, and politically volatile, "mass" audience of film. It then considers how contemporary theories of early cinema as an alternative public sphere (particularly feminist theories) both resist and fall prey to the reformers' vision of the dependent mass audience. (KJK)