"It's Such a Small Planet, Why Do You Need Borders?": Seeing Flying in Le Petit Prince and Its Screen Adaptations

Abstract:In this article, I analyze the potential positive impact of aerial perspectives on children's understanding of their place in the world, with Le Petit Prince envisioning a borderless world of ecological and social unity. The novellas of the pilot and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry encourage their projected viewers to see the interconnectedness of all life, including the life of the planet itself. Most notably, Le Petit Prince raises environmental responsibility in discussing the prince's planet and undermines ideas of national difference as the prince views the earth from space. Visual adaptations of Le Petit Prince by Stanley Donen and Will Vinton pick up on Saint-Exupéry's phenomenology of perception and translate them through visual techniques into politicized aerial perspectives. Looking at Le Petit Prince and its film adaptations, this article argues that aerial perspectives work to transform children's perceptions and break down bordered mappings of the world.