An Oscar for child actors / actresses

WI there were such an Academy award

1) Would it have an effect on movies made?

2) Who would win it?

3) Would it have an effect on society and the nature of entertainment?
 
The only two 'children' that immediately come to mind, are Haley Joel Osment, and Dakota Fanning, with perhaps that guy who plays Harry Potter.
 
Well they did make a special mini oscar for Shirley Temple so its not a big stretch that they keep it on for other child actors say under 15 years of either sex. Winners could be Elizabeth Taylor for National Velvet in 1945, Jodie Foster for Taxi Driver 1976, Henry Thomas for E.T. in 1983.
 
Many rather young actors have won and been nominated for Oscars. Today we seem to get a young person in there once every 3-4 years (HJ Osment, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Atonement-girl.) In the old days they were more inclined to give out "special" awards, like the Shirley Temple mini-Oscar, because child actors were held to a different standards. For this reason, there are definitely PODs where such a category could be created. And if you think about it, separating the awards by gender is pretty arbitrary as well. It's all done to satisfy pagentry and celebrity.

So they make the award, probably for Shirley Temple to win something. Studios start diversifying, creating more roles for child actors for the simple reason that the academy doesn't just want to hand it over to the same couple of kids every year.

Producers looking for a production edge will start looking for ways to insert inert child actors into a film who are wall flowers for most of it, but who come alive in one scene for dramatic purposes. It'll effect the entire structure of films, this requisite reassurance of youth. The use of close-ups will be sped up and we'll see them take over sooner because kids need them more than adult actors.

The separateness of teenagers is solidified slightly earlier, though the presentation of children as different, unready, precocious-at-best, this may have some effect on the culture.

The age limit will be an interesting discussion, and will probably change as time goes by. Young actresses are much more frequently nominated than young actors, and women (according to mid-century mores) become adults sooner than men. We might see as much as a two-year age difference, women 16 and under, men 18 and under. Or considering that performers in their early 20s never win the big statues, studios might insist on at least 20 and under.

By today films likely look completely different. Considering men know how to win their oscars (play disabled) and women know how to get their oscars (play ugly or defiant) they'll probably be specific roles that are seen as "going for the juvie" (though they'll probably use a less leading phrase.)
What child acting looks like these days I couldn't really say, but probably has more to do with celebrating the specialness of childhood rather than harry potter syndrome (early assumption of adult responsibility.)
 
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