To be sure, the American film industry’s promotion of
child stars in recent years has relied upon their abilities to
act within adult contexts, rather than in the childcentered vehicles more common before the 1950s. The
same hit-or-miss trends continued for child actors
through the 1990s and thereafter, as witnessed by the
forgettable lead performances of Michael Oliver in
Problem Child (1990), Mason Gamble in Dennis the
Menace (1993), Cameron Finley in Leave It to Beaver
(1997), and the juvenile casts of Newsies (1992) and
The Little Rascals (1994). Meanwhile, some kids did have
breakout roles, like Christina Ricci in Mermaids (1990),
Jason James Richter in Free Willy (1993), Kirsten Dunst
in Interview with the Vampire (1994), and Haley Joel
Osment in The Sixth Sense. Nonetheless, most of these
films relied upon the presence of major adult stars, which
remains the typical scenario in which child actors continue to be featured.
The only child star of the 1990s who commanded
attention on his own was Macaulay Culkin (b. 1980),
who rose to immediate prominence as the ten-year-old
with the one-boy-show Home Alone (1990), and continued to lure audiences with performances in My Girl
(1991), The Good Son (1993), Richie Rich (1994), and
the inevitable sequel to Home Alone, Home Alone 2: Lost
in New York in 1992. Yet like so many before him, he
burned out as an actor before his adolescence and only
later returned to acting.
In the second century of cinema, child actors continue to rely upon the marquee value of adult stars in
order to propel their careers. After Osment’s continued
visibility in films like Pay It Forward (2000) and Artificial
Intelligence: A.I. (2001) with older co-stars, Dakota Fanning emerged as a similar child lead, who enjoyed the
luxury of starring with Oscar-nominated adults in I
Am Sam (2001), Man on Fire (2004), and War of the
Worlds (2005), all before she turned twelve. Still, the film
industry has rarely been able to build child actors into
celebrities since the 1950s, and while charismatic and
talented children will always be needed to fill important
roles in cinema stories, the record shows that they face
obstacles in maintaining their importance as well as their
celebrity.