Differences in Family Concepts in Contemporary Children's Films

Visual presentation of Chinese and Western cultures

Abstract

As an important carrier of popular culture, children's films are not only entertainment products, but also transmitters of social concepts and values. This article takes contemporary Chinese and foreign children's films such as "Ne Zha: The Birth of the Demon Child", "Life Events", "Coco", and "Spider Man: Parallel Universe" as analysis samples, and deeply explores the differences in the presentation of Chinese and Western family concepts in images from three dimensions: family structure, parent-child relationships, and the tension between individuals and families. Research has found that Chinese children's films tend to depict a family lineage characterized by a "vertical axis", emphasizing intergenerational responsibility, sacrifice, and integration, and the self realization of children needs to be achieved through family identity; Western children's films, on the other hand, focus on the family unit centered around the "horizontal axis", advocating for equal dialogue and individual separation between parents and children. Self realization is often achieved through an independent journey away from home. This difference is rooted in the deep cultural logic of collectivism and individualism. However, in the context of globalization, Chinese and Western children's films have also shown a new trend of mutual reference and integration, jointly depicting the pursuit of eternal human emotions - love and understanding.