Tootie is annoying and disturbed!

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I really enjoy the Halloween segment. It emphasizes a time when Halloween was celebrated for its dark intentions, and not just for collecting candy door to door. The man who was "killed" by the flour in the face evidently understood what it was all about. He kept his bulldog inside and only seemed mildly annoyed.

The Halloween segment also shows how children can have such a different perspective of the world than grown-ups. Tootie's act of courage earned her the respect of her peers as she proudly proclaims how horrible she is.

Real life children are seldom little angels, but most grow up to be completely well-adjusted. A little girl who seems picture-perfect probably has too much in common with Rhoda from The Bad Seed (1956) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048977/.


"... in Alabama, the tusks are looser [Tuscaloosa]." -- Groucho Marx in Animal Crackers (1930)

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After reading some of the comments here I have to say this:

It's only a MOVIE. I wonder why some people have such a problem distinguishing between fantasy and reality. I watch movies to be entertained-I don't spend my time doing anal exams on them like some others do.

What people should have been more disturbed about was the fact that some deranged lighting man tried to KILL Margaret by dropping a light on her during the filming of this movie. THAT'S reality-not some Halloween scene in a movie.

Three-plus years later this thread's still going on...I'm watching this movie on TCM for the first time and was taken aback by the Halloween scene, so I looked it up here. It's pretty dark. But playing light and dark against each other has always been part of storytelling. "Peter Pan" is a pretty violent book.
Kids are little savages, but as long as they get to spend one evening a year harmlessly venting it, it's cute. ("We killed them! We tortured them first!")
Never during my lifetime could you get away with knocking on a neighbor's door, yelling "I hate you!" and throwing flour in his face, but it was acceptable at the place and time of this movie; the old man seems a bemused and willing participant.
Lot of areas used to celebrate "mischief night" Oct. 30 (a.k.a. devil's night, hell night, goosey night). It was all in good fun but in the 1970's it started getting dangerous with arson and serious vandalism. (See the 1994 movie "The Crow.")
Trying to derail a trolley car, I find it hard to believe that'd be laughed off in any era except by really bad parents. That'd be a ticket to reform school.
I recall when I was young (the 70's) some friends played the stuffed-body in the road game and got chased by an angry motorist for it; they would have gotten a visit from the cops had they been found out. But at least that was a road without much traffic and a 25 mph speed limit.

I unfortunately grew up in a household where spanking was administerd as punishment. I can absolutely assure you that it did nothing to improve my character. All it did was make me afraid of my father, and to this day I am still dealing with the emotional crap from my childhood. Laying a hand on a child to inflict pain is horrific and barbaric. There are myriad gentler forms of punishment that actually TEACH a child something. Spanking -- let's be honest -- beating a child doesn't teach them anything but fear. Personally, if I had children, I would much rather that they respect my parental authority out of love than out of a fear of being beaten.

I completely agree with everything you said. I found her character not only obnoxious, spoiled, and annoying but also getting away with some very bad habits--like you mentioned: throwing flour in peoples' faces and almost getting a lot of people hurt. I can't understand why they made her out to be such a brat.