Communications and Media

Jumanji was a childrens movie which released in the year 1995. The movie is based on a book which was published in 1981. The book was written by Chris Van Allsburg. The film revolves around 4 characters that play a board game. Judy and Peter are the children whose parents leave them at home and ask them to keep the place clean. The children head out to the park and find a free board game, Jumanji.

The game instructions say that it starts in the jungle and ends in The Golden City. At the first roll of the dice, the boy, Alan is sucked into the game and can not be found. Years later another two children, Judy and Peter, find the game and start to play it. At every roll that the kids make, some animal is unleashed and the next move is the only thing that will send it back. The game can not be stopped once it has started, thus the children need to finish it. The three characters, Judy, Peter and Alan find Alans old girlfriend who also helps them out with the game.

Every roll of dice causes them to experience something new and out of the ordinary. Animals such as pythons, lions, and a rhinoceros stampede are part of the game. But it is not only animals which are unleashed. The children also experience natural disasters such as monsoons during the course of the game.
Once the game finishes and the first player to reach the end calls out Jumanji everything goes back to normal and the children are in their homes. Everything goes back to the way it was.

Reality or Fantasy
Reality is something which is true. It is something which can happen to any one of us. Fantasy is the complete opposite of reality. It is something which is not true and is not possible. Most movies incorporate some elements of fantasy. There are movies which are completely based on fantasy, for example fairy tales and then there are movies which comprise a little of both. These movies usually include movies such as Daddy Day Care. These movies are also meant for children but are not completely untrue. There is a very thin line between fantasy and reality. It is also difficult to define something as a complete reality or a complete fantasy, there are many grey areas.

Childhood is a social construction and in different times children have had different developments socially and culturally. In todays time, the schools are there to help the children understand what it is to be a child and what is expected out of children in general.

When children watch shows which border on the line between reality and fiction, they get confused. They tend to think that these things can also happen in real life. We have heard of many incidents where the children watch superhero films and then try to act like the hero. For example some kids try to fly after they have seen a Superman movie. This causes many accidents to take place and many children to loose their lives or their limbs.

To some extent it can be said that movies help children identify with people that are similar to them. But if there is too much fiction in a movie, it may result in the child identifying with something that is not possible in real life.

It is not necessary that all television and TV time is bad for children. According to the Singers, watching some TV is actually good for children as it increases their level of creativity and promotes readiness. But this requires some guidance from the parents or the teachers, who can show children the right content.

Jumanji is a film which is based on fantasy. There is hardly any element of reality in it. The concept of board games does exist in reality and children and adults of all ages do play them but the way this board game, Jumanji is played in the movie is complete fiction. It is not possible in real life for animals to come occur just because the board game says they will. There are some specific scenes which are the most confusing. First of all, it is also not possible in reality for a child to be sucked in a game and being lost until another 2 children start to play the game and the same child appears as an old man.

The second confusing scene which borders on reality and fantasy is just by playing a board game the children have wreaked havoc within the city and nobody else within the city notices. It is unusual for all the other residents to vanish, except Alans girlfriend who they found and got to play with them. Also, Judy and Peters aunt has conveniently dropped out of the movie and is not to be found, especially since she was there before the children started to play the board game.

They are running around, trying to avoid the animals and disasters which emerge from the game. The children who initially started the game and the children who re-opened the game, all four of them are trying to finish the game so that they can return to their real life.

Another confusing element for the children is that the boy, Alan when he went into the game was young but years later when the game was re-opened he had aged like a normal person. Also, the movie shows catastrophes hitting the whole city but there is nobody else in the entire city to notice that so much I happening.

There are many other such questions which come to mind when watching the movie. Also children need to connect the thoughts and understand the movie otherwise they can not make the connection between events. As adults we know the difference and are able to view things in isolation. This shows what children talk about when they view the movie with a family.

Jumanji has blurred the difference between reality and fantasy. Many film makers and authors tend to do that. They try to incorporate something out of the ordinary in real life. This leads to confusion for the children because they themselves are not so sure about the reality part of life. Children are just getting to know about all the things around them, their knowledge base is not as developed as that of an adult.

Another example of such burring by an author is the series of Harry Potter books. A life which is based on reality is running simultaneously to a life which is based on fantasy. Many young children question their parents about the things that they are shown in movies and why they are not true in reality.

Jumanji like many other movies cannot draw a distinct line between the two reality and fantasy. It has resulted in children thinking that when they play the game, same things will happen to them, which they dont because they are a fantasy and not part of reality.