The abused child, thefantasized child, the contested child-the child limited or qualified by anadjective. Orentlicher's the (Mass) (1987, 11 mins) captures a delirious countyfair event in which parents pose their children as life-size Hummel figurines.The costumed kids are never as cooperative as their ceramic counterparts.World-wise and awkwardly adult, the battered children in Houlberg's A Is forAbuse (1993, 10 mins) are vessels for society's darkest failures. Usuallysurrendered to the rubric of "children of divorced parents," thesubjects of Scott's Miss Somebody (1995, 10:30 mins, 16mm) resist such numbingclassification. This fanciful essay shows kids bearing the unfortunate burden ofself-knowledge. Denying self-knowledge seems to be a right-wing ploy as evidencedin Wrobel's disturbing yet unusually even-handed glimpse of an anti-abortionrally, How I Spent My Summer Vacation (1994, 10 mins), in which children used onthe front lines are interviewed. A child becomes convenient chattel in a judicialprocess dominated by gender and class bias in Born to Be Sold: Martha RoslerReads the Strange Case of Baby $ M (1988, 35 mins). Rosler employs jocularre-enactments and stinging wit in her analysis of the Mary Beth Whitehead case.Here, parenthood becomes a battle between dollars and sense.-SteveSeid