MovieChat Forums > Treasure Island (1950) Discussion > Paedophile subtext?

Paedophile subtext?

posted 15 years ago by kneecapboy
33 replies | jump to latest

Now dont freak out - but I work in child protection and one of the main things we look out for in a paedophile is when adults begin to groom children. What this means is that the adult is seeking ways of: getting the child alone, gaining their trust, giving them gifts that may not be appropriate, touching children so as to test the boundaries of their friendship, developing a culture of secrecy or giving them tasks to do that they are not allowed to tell others about. All this happens in the process of 'seducing' them.

Now, does anyone else see any similarities between the above list and the relationship in this film between Long John Silver and Jim? You can pretty much check every box one way or another - so I was a bit creeped out between their relationship actually. Granted, it was more complex than that, but still a little weird.

Did anyone else pick up on it or have I just been working with the wrong sorts of people for too long?

[–] max_demian 15 years ago

It's a feature film based on a novel, the writing of both of which predates the modern concept of 'grooming', so you would have to suppose that either RL Stevenson or the writer and/or director of the film had some conscious or subconscious anticipation of modern ideas, which seem scarcely credible.

I think that cupidity is more likely than concupiscence as Silver's motivation.

Notwithstanding the likelihood that cabin boys were hired as a woman substitute on board ships in those days, but I don't think a sea cook would have got a look in. Strictly a poop deck privilege.

[–] DavidW1947 15 years ago

I doubt very much that the relationship between Long John Silver and Jim was thought of in that way when the film was made sixty years ago...let alone when the novel was written. It only seems that way now with all the media-hyped paranoia about paedophilia, in which every action between an adult and a child is seen from the point of view of someone sexually attracted to children. Any adult showing concern for or kindness to a child is judged to be up to no good. The fact that most of the population aren't paedophiles cuts no weight with the paranoia-led populace.

Yes, to our modern point of view, it does seem as though Long John is embarking on a "grooming" programme that will eventually lead to him getting young Jim's pants down. But sometimes, things can look to be one way and turn out to be something entirely different.

[–] Blue-59 15 years ago

In the 19th century, men wrote to other men and told them how much they loved them and wanted to clasp them to their bosom. That was OK for masculine, heterosexual men to do back then. But seeking pedophilia in 19th-century novels on the basis of today's watch-list is not likely to produce valid results.

People have looked for homoerotic threads in Batman, too, and a lot of other places where they don't exist.

That being said, note that in the 1934 version of Treasure Island, Jim Hawkins (Jackie Cooper) is menaced by a murderous, effeminate pirate ("I like pretty things, I do," he says as he ogles Jim in the tavern) whose prissy nature annoys some of the masculine sailors. Happy ending, though. The guy gets marooned on the island.

[–] DavidW1947 15 years ago

I've never seen the 1934 version, so I'll take your word for the content. Of course, it's easy to interpret certain scenes as to representing something they don't represent. For instance, if you showed to somebody who'd never seen it and therefore didn't know any different, the scene from the 1949 Walt Disney version where Israel Hands, alone with Jim on the ship, is trying to grab hold of Jim on the deck and then chases the boy up the rigging to the crow's nest, that the pirate was drunk and lusting after Jim and was intent on getting Jim's pants down, they may believe you, as the scene in isolation actually plays that way...and could either be an attempted rape scene or the pirate intent on killing Jim in order to get the treasure map off him. But the correct version only becomes apparent in the context of the rest of story.

[–] blankname21 15 years ago

you could say long john silver was grooming jim. but not with the intent of having sex with him, but to get him to trust him so he could do long johns bidding without question (like getting the rum or holding on to a gun for him to use later).

[–] thinker1691 15 years ago

Kneecapboy:
Now don't freek out, but I wonder if you'd suspect

Jesus of anything if he requested " Suffer the children

be brought unto me? In secret of course, as Christianity

was a "Secret organization." Touching them to test

the boundries of friendship, while giving them tasks to do

and not to tell The Romans about it.

I wonder if we'd see you nailing the Christ to the cross

while explaining your work.

later

"If you make the world your enemy, you'll never run out of reasons to be miserable"

[–] DavidW1947 15 years ago

I think that these days, Jesus would have to have a CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) check before he'd be allowed to even talk to a child, let alone sit one on his lap...such is the paranoia concerning paedophila these days. This paranoia didn't exist when I was a child sixty years ago and I feel sure it didn't exist in Biblical times, either.

[–] greendimension 15 years ago

I agree David. All this paranoia nowadays is utterly ridiculous.

"just panties, what else do I need?"

Poseidon Adventure

[–] DavidW1947 15 years ago

Yes, if we look back at the early 1950's, life was so different. Children and adults mixed freely and talked to each other freely; strangers in the park pushed children on the swings or roundabouts or down the slides, or bought them ice creams from the ice cream van and nobody was concerned about it in the slightest. I'm not saying that certain men didn't befriend (today known as "grooming") children and lead them off somewhere for sexual purposes, because that did happen occasionally and indeed, it happened to me. However, it's far less likely to happen today, as adults and children just don't mix any more as they did when I was a child and there is far less opportunity for men (or women) to do such things. In fact, it's the present day paranoia that leads some people to see the intentions of Long John Silver while befriending Jim Hawkins as something they're not. People just wouldn't have seen it that way when the film was originally released sixty years ago.

[–] jaddjamar 15 years ago

OP, you are totally off the mark.

Plotholes are like Bigfoot, people who claim to see them are just trying to stir things up.

[–] ragdy_andy2000 14 years ago

ARG get a life

[–] zena-1 14 years ago

The same could be said of a more recent film "About a Boy". It made me feel a bit doubtful about a young lad habitually spending time with a single guy, who also bought him things!

[–] LocoHero 13 years ago

But in "About a Boy", the kid hassled the grown up to spend time with him. There was no grooming-like behaviour by the adult.

However, Treasure Island is clearly about a paedophile ring. All the pirates were pedos and the "treasure" was actually a massive stash of kiddo-porn.

[–] Kieselguhr 13 years ago

Thanks to the O.P. for taking an innocent childhood classic and writing in a contemporary theme. It is an old, vile trick that threatens our civilisation.

The O.P. needs to get a new job and leave the rest of us to enjoy our Golden Oldies without the spectre of anal penetration, oral sex and sexual slavery.

Thanks for ruining my entire year.