Educating society for a New Argentina. Childhood and the formation of subjectivities through the film Vacaciones útiles (Useful holidays) (Argentina, 1948)

Abstract

Peronism deployed, especially since the 1950s, a set of devices for the attention and care of children in Argentina, not only through schools but also through other institutions, such as development societies, cooperatives, the Eva Perón Foundation, sports clubs, among others. The new social order was central to the rhetoric of the government, and it gave children a preeminent role, as is visible in the phrase ?in the New Argentina the only privileged are the children?. This paper focuses on Vacaciones útiles, a film made in 1948 that shows how educational cinema reflects a view of childhood and also how public policies aimed at it. This short film was part of a larger project called Cine Escuela Argentino, a Commission of the National Council of Education for the production of film material to be shown in schools and other public institutions. What particular view did Peronism have on childhood in it? To what extent can this film be thought of as an educational cinema or as a school cinema? In which ways do films like Vacaciones útiles or public policies like Cine Escuela Argentino show the figure of the State as author?.