TV Reviews : Kids Point to a Hopeful Future in ‘Dream Contest’
The headlines may be bleak, but children still have hopes for a brighter future. That’s the message in the 12 colorful mini-films that make up “The American Dream Contest,” airing on KTLA Channel 5 Sunday at 8 p.m.
The films were inspired by ideas sent in from all 50 states by children ages 9 to 17 about what dreams “American kids have about themselves and their country.”
A 10-year-old takes Mikhail Gorbachev on a tour of his favorite places, from Mt. Rushmore to miniature golf. Four fourth-graders effortlessly crumble the wall of racial and ethnic prejudice. A boy meets the man (Gavin MacLeod) he will become in the 21st Century. An Asian teen-ager, to whom education is a joy, eloquently remembers the terror of her life in Vietnam.
Produced with effective simplicity by Arnold Shapiro and narrated by Michael Landon, this is the third in Shapiro’s superb five-part series “Raising Good Kids in Bad Times.” (Previous segments were “See Dick and Jane Lie, Cheat and Steal: Teaching Morality to Kids” and “The Truth About Teachers.”)
Environmental, political and societal problems may be overwhelming to adults, but children, unencumbered with their elders’ frames of reference, see to the heart of an issue with ease.
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