Culture

Classic Film

The one glimmer of light in the otherwise horrid time period that constitutes the school holidays is that general access television plays impeccable children’s films (I use the term “children” very lightly). Nothing could have soothed my pain of riding on a bus full of fondling 14-year-olds quite like Little Rascals being featured on C4’s programming.

For those of you not well acquainted with this classic (in other words: for those of you without a soul), let me enlighten your empty husk of a being. Little Rascals is 83 minutes of pure sunshine that chronicles the plight of children doing the funniest thing they possibly can do – pretend to be adults. The story follows the love sick Alfalfa as he desperately tries to keep both the affections of his number one gal Darla and the friendship of his best mate Spanky, president of the “He-Man-Woman-Haters-Club.”

Which certainly raises the question: is Little Rascals sexist?! I’m not sure. The film comically plays up gender difference as the boys are portrayed to be as dirty, reckless and as crass as humanly possible, whilst the girls could not get any fluffier, softer or, for that matter, weaker. For the sake of all our childhood memories, I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt and say this is used to highlight the ridiculousness of the supposed “Men are from Mars, Woman are from Venus” myth … I hope.

Perhaps the most incredible thing about Little Rascals is how astonishingly young the actors are. I’m amazed they could even pronounce half of the words, let alone remember them long enough to recite them to a camera. That’s not to say the kids always know what they’re saying: Darla’s strange intonation and distant eyes definitely indicate otherwise (fair enough I say, she was fucking five). It’s no surprise that Bug Hall, as Alfalfa, is the best actor – at a practically senior nine years old, he was by far the oldest member of the gang. Little Rascals was hilarious, it was inappropriate, and, above all, it taught us that “you only meet your once-in-a-lifetime friends ... once in a lifetime.”