In the not-so-distant past, background checks and CPR training weren’t de rigueur a friendly and willing neighborhood teenager would suffice.Ī history professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Forman-Brunell got the idea for “Babysitter” while working on a dissertation about girls and dolls. “I wanted to expose the underlying fear and fantasies that many adults share about teenage girls,” she said in an interview.Īnd, as Forman-Brunell writes, although the basic job description has remained the same, its work requirements have evolved over the decades. Why and how the baby sitter rose to pop culture prominence is one of the topics explored by Miriam Forman-Brunell in her book “Babysitter: An American History.” Other stock characters are the sexy Lolita ( Alicia Silverstone in 1995’s “The Babysitter”) and the psycho-nanny ( Rebecca De Mornay in “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”). This synopsis from the upcoming horror flick “The House of the Devil” is a classic example of the cinematic portrayal of the baby sitter as naïve.
A beautiful co-ed and her friend take a baby-sitting job at a creepy old mansion only to discover that there is no baby and that they have become trapped in a house.