Kids in Movies - Interesting article

[kherbert05]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0125/p01s02-ussc.html?s=hns

I thought you all might like this article.

[Ulla dances in a silly way]

The issues I have with people going entirely by ratings is that, despite being rated PG-13, the movie might not be aimed at 13 years olds. So many people do not seem to understand that.

A perfect example is "Forrest Gump." Yes, it is PG-13, but the target audience is hardly 13 year olds. Young teens just won't "get it." It is not intended for young viewers though it might be "safe" for them to see. I watched it very young and while it was hardly scarring, I definitely didn't get it until I was in high school.

Yes, there is definitely a "ratings creep" going on. Rocky Horror was rated R for crying out loud! It's much less shocking than most R movies I've seen recently. People still need to use common sense and not rely on the rating system to judge a movie for them.

-Ulla

[Alida]

They could create a pamphlet outlining why it's important for parents not to take young children into some movies, she says, or have a policy that they'll encourage families with young children to find a more appropriate movie.

Eh... or she could just do what DH and I did (and still do for some movies): watch it first and judge whether or not it's appropriate for their child. 

Take some responsibility! 

[Scritzy]

People still need to use common sense and not rely on the rating system to judge a movie for them.

Exactly. Find something out about the movie besides it being an Oscar nominee and getting two thumbs up from critics.

A former Sunday-school teacher of mine took her grandkids to see a computer-animated movie that she thought would be fine for the kids. She was embarrassed to death at the perponderance of potty humor and even some swearing. (I don't remember the name of the movie.)

Another friend's sister took her kids to see The Cat in the Hat. She walked out of it, taking the kids with her, after the joke about the "silly hoe." Dr. Seuss must have been rolling in his grave over that "interpretation" of his book.

And you are right about Forrest Gump. Very few little kids would understand that movie, and I wouldn't subject one to the war footage for anything.

I vividly remember when my best friend dragged me to see 10, a movie I didn't care for. As the thing finally ended and I was turning around to get my jacket, I heard, "So, Grandma, how did you like it?" And there sat a woman with a child who looked to be about nine years old.

Ratings creep, but definitely. Even the cartoons these days just boggle me. "Ed, Edd and Eddie," anyone?

[Alida]

I don't know - sometimes I think the ratings are more restrictive now.  I recently watched ET with DD and I was shocked at the language.  No way that would have made PG nowadays.  DH, who works in that industry, agreed.

But then again, ratings like that?  It really has nothing to do with the content and all about what can be 'negotiated.'  Somewhere I have information on how that whole process works and it's a laugh.

[Suze]

I read once that they put the word DAM N in the movie ANNIE just so that it would not get a G rating

As everyone knows there isn't a soul in the world that will go to a movie with a G rating.

[fklwmn]

i haven't even read the article yet, just the posts here and I DEFINITELY agree there is a ratings creep going on. My son will be 13 next year and I am dreading it b/c I don't think a lot of PG-13 movies are child appropriate.

For that matter, a lot of PG movies aren't child appropriate! My dad is the DVD buyer for my kids. He bought them Cat in the Hat when it came out. I never IMAGINED that it would be something that I wouldn't want my boys watching. They watched it at my parents house long before I ever saw it.

The Cat in the Hat was one of my FAVORITE Dr Seuss books (I can recite the whole thing from memory even though I haven't read it in probably more than 6 years now...) so I was excited to see the movie. I. Was. HORRIFIED. It was crude and rude and just plain awful. It should have been rated PG-13 AT LEAST (but then who would have gone to see a PG-13 Dr. Seuss movie?)

The other movies I think should have been rated PG-13 and not PG were the Shrek movies. Both of them, though # 2 was worse. I took my boys to see Shrek in the theater, and I was shocked at some of the jokes but b/c my kids were 2 and 4 they didn't get those so it wasn't a big deal. I was cringing at the 8 and 10 year olds in there though.

When Shrek 2 came out my kids were old enough to understand the inappropriate humor, so I wouldn't let them watch it. I STILL won't let them watch it. Maybe my oldest can watch it last year. But I mean, Pinocchio should NOT be wearing a woman's thong in a PG-rated movie. COME ON!!!

On the other hand, there are a few rated R movies from when I was a kid that I have no problems letting my boys watch. It's the difference in ratings between then and now.

It also gets me that I seem to be the ONLY parent who cares about ratings and what my kids are mature enough to watch.They come home from school talking about all these movies they are not allowed to see, describing scenes that their friends told them about.

I've seen some of the movies that these kids are talking about and there is NO WAY that 9, 10, 12, 13 year old kids should be watching these movies.

[fklwmn]

Ohhh, I read the article, and I just wanted to highlight my favorite quote:

"Parents have life experience, kids don't, and it's important to realize that the way their child experiences [a movie] is very different than the way they do,"

AMEN!!!

Also, there is a website I use quite frequently when I am not sure about the content of a movie my kids want to see (if it's on DVD I just watch it first, but I can't do that in the theaters). I don't always agree with their age assessments, but they give very good details about the major flags (violence, sex, language, drugs, etc...) and have ratings with explanations from professionals, parents and kids. It hasn't steered me to a wrong decision yet, so I thought I'd share with other vigilant parents:

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/

[littlelauraj]

Fklwmn, you're not the only parent out there that won't let their kids watch any old thing just because the ratings says it's okay.  I am especially sensitive to this subject as my own parents had no boundaries with me as a child.  At the tender ages of 7, 8, 10, whatever, they were taking me to movies like The Amityville Horror, Jaws, Goodbye Girl, and The Omen III.  And yes, I recall very vividly what it was like to have the you-know-what scared out of me, or the embarassment of watching Richard Dreyfuss wearing nothing but a guitar.

My own kids *know* that if we haven't seen it before, I will be previewing it.  Scritzy, there is no Ed, Edd, and Eddie at this house!     And yes, we are in the minority, but I don't care!  There will be no delightful Cat in the Hat making jokes about "hoes" in this house!  Just because a movie is advertised as family friendly doesn't mean it's friendly to my family. 

[Ulla dances in a silly way]

"When he was 10, she chose to take one son to "Nowhere in Africa," an Oscar nominee for best foreign-language film about a German-Jewish family in 1930s Africa."

What's this business about Oscar nominees? Why would an Oscar nomination make a movie family friendly? Oscars are given for the best movies, not (necesarily) the most family friendly ones. The best movies generally deal with adult topics and mature themes. Yes, there are Oscars for family movies, go see those, but "Best Picture" is always something mature.

-Ulla

[fklwmn]

"When he was 10, she chose to take one son to "Nowhere in Africa," an Oscar nominee for best foreign-language film about a German-Jewish family in 1930s Africa."

What's this business about Oscar nominees? Why would an Oscar nomination make a movie family friendly? Oscars are given for the best movies, not (necesarily) the most family friendly ones. The best movies generally deal with adult topics and mature themes. Yes, there are Oscars for family movies, go see those, but "Best Picture" is always something mature.

-Ulla

I'm not sure that the Oscar nomination had anything to do with her reasoning for taking her boys to see the film. I red it as just a part of the description of the film for people who were not familiar with it.

[Scritzy]

At the tender ages of 7, 8, 10, whatever, they were taking me to movies like The Amityville Horror, Jaws, Goodbye Girl, and The Omen III.  And yes, I recall very vividly what it was like to have the you-know-what scared out of me, or the embarassment of watching Richard Dreyfuss wearing nothing but a guitar.

When I was four years old, Mother took me (and Sissie, who was three) to see the Biblical epic David and Goliath. It was 1960, and the film was being marketed as a family film because kids attending were given a "Vari-Vue" (a plastic picture with a ridged top — when you moved the top back and forth, you saw David slinging the stone at Goliath).

Mother never considered that having something read from a Bible-story book and seeing it on screen were two entirely different things. Sissie and I had never seen anything but Disney and the Frankie Avalon/Annette Funicello beach movies (a lot of which went over our heads, but still safe). Seeing a giant slain "for real" scared the snot out of us. We started crying so loudly that Mother hustled us out of the theatre. I don't remember if we were still crying on the bus as we rode home, but we were terrified. Mother was so disappointed that we hadn't liked the movie since we had loved the story. She just didn't think.

As I grew up, I wasn't even allowed to see "M" (the rating that eventually became GP, then PG, then PG-13) movies. I didn't see my first R-rated movie until I was in college, when I saw One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and wrote a paper about it for my Social Problems class.

Re "Ed, Edd and Eddie," a friend's son almost got kicked out of the after-school program when he was in kindergarten because he put his hand down a little girl's pants. The teacher talked to his mom, who then lit into the kid. His answer: "But I was just trying to give her a wedgie like 'Ed, Edd and Eddie'." She blocked the Cartoon Network from her TV, but he found a way to get around the block (some quirk in the remote), so she gave up. I told her she should have called the cable company and had it removed permanently.

[Ulla dances in a silly way]

"When he was 10, she chose to take one son to "Nowhere in Africa," an Oscar nominee for best foreign-language film about a German-Jewish family in 1930s Africa."

What's this business about Oscar nominees? Why would an Oscar nomination make a movie family friendly? Oscars are given for the best movies, not (necessarily) the most family friendly ones. The best movies generally deal with adult topics and mature themes. Yes, there are Oscars for family movies, go see those, but "Best Picture" is always something mature.

-Ulla

I'm not sure that the Oscar nomination had anything to do with her reasoning for taking her boys to see the film. I red it as just a part of the description of the film for people who were not familiar with it.

OK, cool. I just jumped to conclusions. Bad Ulla!

Has anyone ever been the capalert.com? It's this guy who "rates" movies according to the offensive material in them. Funny thing is, he gives movies he likes excuses for things that must surely be "accidents." Like the bit in "Finding Neverland" where the camera focuses on one of the ladies' breasts before moving to her face. Obviously, this was an accident and it was just too expensive to edit it out of this multimillion dollar budget movie.

I bring him up because he calls for all movies to contain nothing but family-friendly content. *shudder* That whole idea makes me feel squicky. Not only is he calling for mass censorship, he is also insinuating the government is  our babysitter and should be watching out for the moral health of us and any kidlets. http://www.capalert.com/capreports/itwon'tmatter/ that's the essay he wrote about that.

-Ulla

[Scritzy]

Funny thing is, he gives movies he likes excuses for things that must surely be "accidents." Like the bit in "Finding Neverland" where the camera focuses on one of the ladies' breasts before moving to her face. Obviously, this was an accident and it was just too expensive to edit it out of this multimillion dollar budget movie.

Oh yeah, right. I really believe that. 

From the beginning days of movies, there were films that were not suitable for everyone in the family. Many movie theatres of the day advertised that "We show only those films that can be attended by Ladies and Children." It's really not anything new, it's just more extreme. And using one's judgement about which movie to see, or to let one's children see, is nothing new, either. It's just been forgotten by some parents, in my opinion.

[Ulla dances in a silly way]

Funny thing is, he gives movies he likes excuses for things that must surely be "accidents." Like the bit in "Finding Neverland" where the camera focuses on one of the ladies' breasts before moving to her face. Obviously, this was an accident and it was just too expensive to edit it out of this multimillion dollar budget movie.

Oh yeah, right. I really believe that. 

From the beginning days of movies, there were films that were not suitable for everyone in the family. Many movie theatres of the day advertised that "We show only those films that can be attended by Ladies and Children." It's really not anything new, it's just more extreme. And using one's judgement about which movie to see, or to let one's children see, is nothing new, either. It's just been forgotten by some parents, in my opinion.

I agree to the extreme!

-Ulla