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In a new YouTube series titled, “Convos With My 2-Year-Old,” (embedded above) a man reenacts real-life conversations with his toddler, who is played by a full-grown man. The result is a hilarious and surprisingly insightful commentary on the language we accept as socially acceptable, simply because it is spoken by a child.
In a series produced by Warmland Films, creator Matthew Clarke acts out a scene that is based on a real-life conversation with his 2-year-old daughter, Coco. In a casting decision that makes all the difference, Coco is played by David Milchard, a sullen-faced, bearded, adult man who is as far removed as possible from Clarke’s winsome, cherubic daughter. Clarke’s wife and Coco’s mother, Leila Harrison, also stars in the video, playing herself.
In the video, Clarke returns home, presumably after a long at work, and happens upon a tea party that his daughter (played by Milchard) and wife are having. When he greets Harrison and begins making small talk with her, he is cut off by the appearance of Coco/Milchard, who tells him solemnly, “You can’t talk to her right now because I’m talking to her right now.”
The conversation quickly breaks down into a power struggle between Clarke and his daughter, who refuses to allow her father to speak to or interact with his wife. Clarke briefly attempts to assert his authority as the head of the household, telling Coco/Milchard, “That’s my wife and I can talk to my wife whenever I want to talk to my wife.” His efforts are flatly rebuffed by the adult-man Coco, who coolly tells her father, “No, she’s not your wife. She’s the princess.” Unhelpfully, Harrison concurs, “I’m the princess right now.”
In the final scene, the camera shows Clarke retreating out of the room, defeated, and then briefly cuts to the couch, where Clarke’s smiling, real-life daughter has now displaced the malevolent Milchard. It’s a poignant reminder of how incredibly differently that conversation might sound when coming out of the mouth of an adorable 2-year-old girl.
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In taking the words of Clarke’s daughter and having them spoken in a different context, the viewer is able to receive the full effect of the conversation, unhindered by the allowances that adults often give to the impertinence of children. While the conversation would normally, when spoken by a child, be received as impish or endearingly cheeky, the replacement of his daughter with a decidedly non-charming adult man allows Clarke to strip away the biases we have as a result of the person delivering the words.
The video highlights the fact that parents often react lightheartedly to youthful disrespect, simply because the words happen to be coming out of a pint-sized body. When that same conversation takes place in a different context, the delivery is fundamentally altered, and the conversation becomes offensive, rude, or even downright menacing. Far from an innocent playtime, it becomes clear that an underlying fight for authority and power is at play between Clarke and his daughter.
The video begs the question, Why are adults so prone to consider offensive language and attitudes in children as “charming”?
Whatever social conclusions can be drawn from the video, the Internet world loved it. As of Friday, the video had already received nearly 1.5 million views.
