Destructive Influences

If there is one thing I hate, it is being scared so bad I almost wet myself. I hate it when my friends jump out at me from behind corners or as I’m washing my face in the sink, I look in the mirror to find my friend looming over my shoulder in order to scare the bejeebees out of me. I hate being scared.

One of the first of the very few horror films I have watched when I was little was Alien. I literally get shivers down my spine when I think of that movie or when I see it sitting on the shelf in Target. I think that was the film that pushed me over the edge with horror films. I cannot stand them to this day.

I think the “scariest” film I’ve ever watched was The Sixth Sense. Great movie, but not all that scary when it comes down to “horror”. I was proud of myself when I finally watched The Mummy!

Don’t judge.

Last summer, one of the first things I did with my best friend was head to theatres to watch The Avengers. While we were watching the previews for other films, I had the unpleasant experience of being put through a terrible horror film preview that scared me half to death (perhaps this is a little pitiful for a twenty-year-old college student?).

While I looked away from the screen to prevent myself from having relapses of fear walking back to the car in the dark later on, I saw two males sitting nearby: an elderly gentleman and a five-year-old boy. The boy was of course staring with an open mouth at the alien preview slashing astronauts or whatever was happening.

I was utterly shocked. The boy’s grandfather wasn’t making any effort at all to guard what the boy was watching!

Now the man took the boy to see The Avengers, not the scary horror film. If he was taking the boy to the theatres to watch the scary film, he’d be turned away because the boy was too young. You can’t necessarily keep tabs on the previews. But he could have put a hand over the boy’s eyes! I was tempted to run across the aisle and do so myself, but my hands were occupied covering my own.

This goes along with my theme of guarding whatever content a child watches; it is important. And it is for more reasons than keeping your child from becoming an utter chicken when he or she is in college. No children should watch horror films; it just is not age appropriate.

Rated R films are not appropriate for children to watch for good reasons: harsh swearing, intense blood and gore, sexual activity and nudity. These types of media are absolutely not appropriate for children, and I’m including teenagers. For the scary films, children don’t need to go to bed terrified, and trust me from experience with my siblings, by the end of the day you want them to go to bed and call it a day. You’re causing problems later on if you let them watch scary stuff.

As for the other high-rated content, children do not need to be informed on the lurid, disgusting behavior of the world. And even if the scene is of a married couple making out late at night, that’s not appropriate for kids! Like I’ve stated in previous posts, children are sponges. What they see, they soak up, and they remember it later on. And the more inappropriate behavior they see when they are young, the more they are influenced in the mindset that certain things are okay.

This is the problem in many of today’s younger generations:  they grew up hearing curse words on television and at home on a regular basis, so that explains their filthy mouths; they watched films with teenagers and/or adults getting drunk with friends or films with heavy sexual content. Over the years of watching content that is, from the director’s and actors’ points of view, completely appropriate, children become accustomed to seeing it. It is no longer a shock; it becomes natural, and completely normal. And they end up committing those same acts in their own lives as a result.

But we mustn’t let this continue. We have to establish lines of what is appropriate for kids to be watching. Only allow your kids and yourself to watch things that will help you along in life, not something that will sell you the idea that something is appropriate to watch. The more you watch it, the more you buy into that mindset.

So I leave you with this: who are you allowing to buy your kids?