At some point in our lives we learn to “index” experiences to the “frames” in which we have those experiences. Beyond that, we begin to figure out how the various frames — real life, movies, TV news, game shows, etc. — are related to one another. [And a few of us go on to get advanced degrees and then this whole system falls apart. But that’s another matter.]

But this frame business is not very well developed in young children. What your daughter knows about the movies is that she’s never seen anyone or anything leave the movie-screen and come into the audience, nor has she ever seen anyone leave the audience and walk into the movie world. She’s never seen any of that. Further, when she’s at the movies, she’s with mommy and or daddy, who therefor make the movie theater a safe zone.

But things are different at home when she unwraps a present and all of a sudden she see’s something that existed in movieland when she first saw it. But it’s not in movieland any more. It’s escaped and is right HERE NOW in her home. As long as she was in the theater that physical setting and the whole ritual of going there protected her. All that stuff WAS her MOVIE FRAME. Without that physical and social stuff, her movie frame is very fragile. So maybe that Zathura game she just opened might be real. In any event, no point in taking chances. Not on Christmas.

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Why’d all those people believe the Orson Welles War of the World’s broadcast? They missed the frame.

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Goffman discusses this sort of thing in Frame Analysis.

I saw Rosemary’s Baby when it was first released. I was in my middle to late teens. I knew perfectly well that devils did not exist in this world, much less could they mate with human females so that the women could give birth to devil children. But somehow that movie got past my rational defense lines and creeped me out. Totally.