old enough to know how it works
(Half hour into the movie before I start typing. Not because I was paying attention exclusively to the movie either. Distracted by the internet. Welcome to the new world.) Anyway, I wanted to put forth a very specific idea today: prior to the events we see in Home Alone , Kevin McCallister probably would not have recognized himself in the mirror. Or, more accurately, he would not have recognized his self . His two scenes in front of the bathroom mirror—that is like his version of Gallup’s (1970) Mirror Self Recognition test. The majority of infants (in the Western world) recognize themselves in the mirror by 24 months, and some do so as early as 3 months. Kevin is not his own person when the action begins in Home Alone . Instead, he sees himself as part of a family, a role he clearly wants to reject, but he just doesn’t know how, so he lashes out. (Gallup’s test, by the way, involves putting a mark on an infant they can only see in a mirror, then placing him/her in front of a mirr...