Francois Truffaut's film Les quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows) details the life of a boy frustrated by authoritarian teachers and insensitive parents. The film traces Antoine's development and maturation, as he channels his frustration increasingly into his writing. The semi-autobiographical picture offers a wealth of insight into the changing roles of children in modern society. The opening scene reveals the structural issues in intergenerational conflict. Antoine did nothing wrong, and was one of many boys passing around the pinup picture. He was singled out, leading him to internalize a sense that authority figures target him unfairly. Moreover, the filmmaker establishes the structural problems in the adult-child and parent-child relationship. In a paternalistic society, children are not offered respect. Without respect, they struggle to develop self-respect and self-awareness. Adults are not communicative with children. The problems that Antoine has at school are mirrors of the problems he has at home. Had the teacher simply offered a verbal scolding related to the pinup and let Antoine go to recess, the punishment would have been far more reasonable than isolating Antoine from his peers. As a result, Antoine Doinel calls his teacher Sourpuss.

Antoine is a budding poet, whose creativity and insight paradoxically surpasses that of his parents. The narrative is interspersed with his commentary delivered in verse format. After handling Antoine roughly, the Sourpuss teacher belittles him in front of the class. The underlying message is that a patriarchal society breeds an authoritative approach to parenting. Authoritative parenting is accompanied, and exacerbated by, authoritative approaches to instruction and classroom management. The filmmaker might be alluding to underlying social commentary related to the authoritative structures within the greater society, which are symbolized by the teacher-student and parent-child relationships.

One of the ways Truffaut presents a systemic and symbolic-interactionist view of Antoine's problems is via the school. Antoine attends a school with an autocratic teaching style that utterly stymies any opportunity for self-expression, creativity, or critical thought. The instructor recites a passage of poetry, and the students must copy it. Students are taking dictation, not learning, and yet they understand the meaning of the words including the ironic sexual innuendos and erotic imagery. The instructor recently chastised the boys for a pinup, but now he delivers an erotic poem in class. Antoine is not blind to the hypocrisy. Throughout the film, Antoine remains ironically more insightful and sophisticated in his understanding than the adults around him. When, in a rare lighthearted moment out with his parents, Antoine analyzes the film they just saw and remarks that it "had depth," his parents respond with silence. Likewise, Antoine is always writing in his journal but no adult takes notice or bothers to see if the boy is interested in developing his skills. Quite the opposite, Sourpuss the teacher belittles Antoine and his interest in poetry in front of the class. "Poor France, what a future!" he says. Toward the end of the film, Sourpuss delivers Antoine's final straw of frustration: the accusation of plagiarism that drives him away.

The negative messages Antoine and other children at school are receiving are reinforced at home. Antoine's mother is particularly callous toward her son. The first time the audience meets the mother, she enters the home and does not greet her child. It is Antoine who must call out, "Bonsoir!" She replies to his greeting, but without leaving the foyer or even looking Antoine's way. Instead, the mother immediately berates Antoine for buying the wrong flour or simply "not what I told you to buy." Clearly, Antoine is more of an errand boy than a son. The mother then states, "No wonder you get such bad grades. Bring me my slippers!" Her belittling statements are echoed throughout the film. The mother in The 400 Blows remains narcissistic and self-absorbed, impacting her relationship with both her husband and her son. Truffaut offers a symbolic scene, in which Antoine leaves the house to run an errand and she immediately looks at herself in the mirror.

Antoine receives negative messages from both parents and teachers. The adults around him do not respect or take him seriously, even though Antoine is old enough to have a worldview more mature than his parents and teachers. Antoine is formulating dreams for himself, and expressing himself creatively through writing. His parents have mundane jobs and lack the interest or ability to question established

The first time the audience learns that Antoine's parents would prefer to be rid of him is when the father asks, "What should we do with the kid next summer?" Referring to him as "the kid" is significant, revealing much about the lack of intimacy in the family. A similar situation ensues with Antoine's friend, who refers to his father as "the old man."
Gender differences in parenting roles are abundantly apparent in 400 Blows, which hints that part of the problems with modern families is that they conform to an outmoded patriarchal model that subjugates and suppresses women. Antoine's father is also cast as a sort of buffoon, always joking and never really serious enough to offer Antoine the fatherly advice or mentoring he needs. Finally, the parents discuss sending Antoine to camp next summer. Antoine was unaware of their camp conversation, but he did overhear his mother suggest sending him to boarding school, "so I can have some peace for a change," as she puts it.

Antoine internalizes his mother's decisive lack of interest in caring for her child, and she becomes symbolically dead to him. Antoine then lies about skipping school and tells the teacher that his mother died. When he is caught, the mother seems more upset that he chose her instead of his father as the dead parent, rather than being interested in addressing Antoine's problems. Antoine's father also threatens to send him to boarding school -- the third time Antoine has heard his parents talk seriously about sending him away. His mother admits that Antoine "gets on my nerves," and it generally seems as if she should never have had children in the first place. To be fair, the mother treats her husband much in the same way she treats Antoine. She belittles both of them equally, as when she laughs at her husband's ambition and states, "You could never be vice president of anything." The mother also makes critical remarks about Antoine for no reason, speaking about him in absolute terms such as, "He always lies." Her way of "winning back" her son's love, as she puts it, was through a financial bribe of 1000 francs for getting a good grade on an essay. The shallowness with which Antoine's mother reacts is characteristic of all the parent-child relationships depicted in 400 Blows. For instance, Antoine's friend's father is more concerned about his prize horse "souvenir" than he is about his child smoking.

The parent-child relationship in 400 Blows is cast in a critical light. Parents are viewed as being part of a dysfunctional patriarchal establishment, paralleled by the authoritarian regime of public schooling. Likewise, parents are cast as being narcissistic and uncaring toward their children. Antoine's friend offers to host him after he runs away, and Antoine asks where his parents are. His friend responds matter-of-factly, "My mother drinks and my father is at the track." Clearly, Truffaut's film offers a broader social commentary and is not just about one bad set of parents. 400 Blows is about structural problems in French society that cause bad parenting habits. Many of those habits are passed on to the children via warped values, norms, behaviors, and belief systems. For instance, the children periodically steal money from their parents. Their moral compass has been thrown off because they see through the hypocrisy that surrounds them on a daily basis.

Because the protagonist is Antoine, viewers are invited to ponder potential catalysts for social change through his eyes. The problems are not only with parenting patterns but with interpersonal communication in general. Antoine's friend's father notes that his wife is never home when he is and that "she must be up to something." The man's concern about his wife recalls the similar concerns of Antoine's father, who suspects that his wife has been cheating on him. Indeed, she has been cheating on him. Antoine catches her kissing her lover early in the film, and later learns that he might not be his father's son. Trust has been eroded in all the relationships depicted in the film, except for those that are between the young friends.

The innocence of childhood is threatened by a hostile and hypocritical system. Children like Antoine discover freedom through personal exploration, innocent mischief, and bonds of friendship with peers. On the contrary, the parent-child relationship lacks nurturing sustenance and is devoid of healthy communication. Parents are depicted as being selfish, self-centered, and narcissistic. They are totally unable to care for the needs of their children, and they lie to each other…