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It's a tough one.
On the one hand, I was raised in an ultra-liberal household. My mother never placed any constraints on me in terms of what I read or watched and it did me no harm, if anything it better prepared me for life and gave me a lust for new experiences and knowledge. One of the first real movies I remember seeing was Aliens and it scared me witless, but it did make me keenly interested in space travel mainly so I better understood what I had seen. All childhood fear is, ultimately, of the unknown, and a very useful life skill is learning how to cope with that fear through knowledge.
On the other hand, the media today is a very different beast to that of the early 90s. 18 rated movies these days contain stuff that'd have been banned outright back then. I mean, comparing Interview with a Vampire with Hostel or The Hills Have Eyes you can see how the definition of "mainstream horror" has slipped to "simulated snuff". if I had a kid I'd have to watch them like a hawk to make sure they didn't happen across anything that even adults shouldn't be getting a kick out of.
That said, I think kids are pretty much subtext-proofed. Any moral they tend to ignore and they're similarly blind to innuendo or more adult themes. A mistake a lot of puritanical protesters make is to attribute their own adult obsessions to children. I watched stuff like "Captain Planet" and Fern Gully and I never really gave two figs for the rain forest until about a decade later. Similarly, I watched Something About Mary and I didn't get what was up with her hair until I hit puberty. I didn't care, I didn't think about it. Kids are totally solipstic and unless something directly applies to them in their own little bubble they won't give it a second look.
Relying on movies and TV to impart moral lessons to children is the only real danger for parents, there are some things that only other human beings can provide.
On the one hand, I was raised in an ultra-liberal household. My mother never placed any constraints on me in terms of what I read or watched and it did me no harm, if anything it better prepared me for life and gave me a lust for new experiences and knowledge. One of the first real movies I remember seeing was Aliens and it scared me witless, but it did make me keenly interested in space travel mainly so I better understood what I had seen. All childhood fear is, ultimately, of the unknown, and a very useful life skill is learning how to cope with that fear through knowledge.
On the other hand, the media today is a very different beast to that of the early 90s. 18 rated movies these days contain stuff that'd have been banned outright back then. I mean, comparing Interview with a Vampire with Hostel or The Hills Have Eyes you can see how the definition of "mainstream horror" has slipped to "simulated snuff". if I had a kid I'd have to watch them like a hawk to make sure they didn't happen across anything that even adults shouldn't be getting a kick out of.
That said, I think kids are pretty much subtext-proofed. Any moral they tend to ignore and they're similarly blind to innuendo or more adult themes. A mistake a lot of puritanical protesters make is to attribute their own adult obsessions to children. I watched stuff like "Captain Planet" and Fern Gully and I never really gave two figs for the rain forest until about a decade later. Similarly, I watched Something About Mary and I didn't get what was up with her hair until I hit puberty. I didn't care, I didn't think about it. Kids are totally solipstic and unless something directly applies to them in their own little bubble they won't give it a second look.
Relying on movies and TV to impart moral lessons to children is the only real danger for parents, there are some things that only other human beings can provide.
You make some good points here, however, I find it difficult to believe that your perception of the world wasn't colored in any way by what you saw on TV or at the movies aside from making you want to learn.
It's true that alot of the "adult" subtext is lost on kids, but aside from that, some toons and other kid shows just aren't concerned with sending the right message.
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"It's a kilt, not a dress, you uncultured swine!"
Founding member of the Divide by Zero Foundation.
There's too much blood in my caffeine system!!
"It's a kilt, not a dress, you uncultured swine!"
Founding member of the Divide by Zero Foundation.
There's too much blood in my caffeine system!!
