My Kid Could Paint That

My Kid Could Paint That is a documentary about a 4 year old named Marla Olmstead who got billed as an abstract (really, nonrepresentational) artist. (It's also a film about what is good art versus bad art versus bullshit art.) She had gallery openings and her paintings have sold for upwards of $10,000 a piece. Maybe more. The documentarian first set out to make a film about modern art and this little phenom named Marla. Soon, the documentary took a turn when it came out that Marla's masterpieces were possibly painted by her fucked-up, bully of a father. First, a local reporter starts following the arch of Marla's career. Then, the story gets picked up by 60 Minutes, where the program attempts to expose Marla for a fraud and the dad as the ultimate influencer of her paintings. The little girl, it seems, paints just as most 4 year olds paint, and whenever she's caught on camera, she cannot finish a painting and the dad speaks sternly to her in the background, freely giving pointed direction.

For the mom's part, she seems protective of Marla and reluctant to allow her daughter to remain in the spotlight. The dad, as the film goes on, sort of gets more defensive and I, the viewer, got more and more uncomfortable with the way the parents seemed to be using Marla as a way to gain fame and money. It's never really revealed if Marla is a fake or not, and that's not even the point. No matter if she was coached or coerced into painting, it was clear to me that Marla did not paint out of her own volition because it made her happy or whole or whatever it is that makes artists make art. She was told to paint, and she is a little, obedient girl.

In a way, this documentary reminded me of a really good movie called House of Cards starring Kathleen Turner and Tommy Lee Jones. Turner's daughter in the movie is brilliant--multilingual, a gifted artist, social. She witnesses her father's death and is traumatized. The little girl is diagnosed as quasi-autistic and Jones is the doctor that assists in bringing back the daughter from her self-imposed prison. The little girl uses art--she paints her body to resemble a tree trunk and then hides herself against the backdrop of a real oak. She builds a complicated house of cards and sits in the middle of it. Turner, an architect, builds a huge model of the house of cards using wood that she can walk on in an effort to understand her daughter's construction and, maybe, understand her mind.

I know that My Kid is a documentary and House is fiction. But, House serves as a juxtaposition to My Kid because the parent is actually attempting to understand the child by analyzing her art. There is something unsettling and terrifying about parents who coach their child to be creative and productive as a way to impose value on that child. Even if Marla were painting on her own and showed herself as a prodigy or genius, she should be able to keep that talent for herself until she ever chooses to send it out into the world for ridicule or praise. As the reporter in the documenary notes, doesn't every child deserve a childhood?