Kids And Movie Violence (split from Ferry Injunction topic)

[Anton Phibes]

           

  Needless to say Preyer, that our dear Anton has given you the censored child safe definition for Ferry. 

Censored and child safe is the way to go.  Just ask my kids, lol!  My 9 year old son really likes Jason, Michael, Freddy, etc..  Curiously enough all of his dvd copies of Friday the 13th, Halloween, etc. are nudity and sexual situations free.  Due to the unique editing capabilities of his father. 

[mike c]

Censored and child safe is the way to go.  Just ask my kids, lol!  My 9 year old son really likes Jason, Michael, Freddy, etc..  Curiously enough all of his dvd copies of Friday the 13th, Halloween, etc. are nudity and sexual situations free.  Due to the unique editing capabilities of his father. 

Interesting... do you cut any of the violence as well? Or is it just the sex you don't want him to see?

Mike C.

[Anton Phibes]

Interesting... do you cut any of the violence as well? Or is it just the sex you don't want him to see?

Mike C.

Heh, heh....I did mention he's 9 right?  Old enough to have met Tom Savini and watch the behind the scenes efx and realize... its all fake.  He's not old enough to see naughty bits on a lady or graphic sexual garbage. I don't even think I am unless they belong to my spouse.  Feel what I am saying here?  I am seriously anti porn. You can watch a zombie gets its head blown off in Resident Evil and not go, "Dang---I need to kill somebody tomorrow".  But if a hot chick disrobes on screen there's not a guy on the planet who's hetero who won't think "Hmmmmmnnnn". I do tire of people trying to say "Little Johnny killed his teacher because he watched Evil Dead".  Its horse crap.  Its a fine line between being a cool dad and a responsible parent.  My wife and I think I do a fine job of tight roping it.  My dad let me watch all of these films growing up.  His rule, if he ever heard us swearing like they did in those films...we'd never see another.  Plus, we didn't see the sex scenes.  VCR's were new, but he would either fast forward when he knew something was coming, or he would make a vcr'd copy for us to watch with the nudity/sex edited out. I just carried it on to my parenting. My kids will be just fine. But I usually only get that question from the crowd who want to raise my kids for me.  I don't believe it takes a village to raise my kids. Just me.  I made them, I'll raise them. Since I am not sure why you asked it, and will give you the benefit of the doubt, I will clarify as to exactly what it is I do. Not in defense of violent acts or language, but just to clarify.


Violence is in every part of any culture all the way back to the slaying of Abel by Cain Historically and the Three Stooges Cinematically. Its unavoidable. But you don't glorify in it. I've seen little boys get their clocks cleaned by other little boys because their parents didn't warn them about violence.  Life isn't all rainbows, ice creams and puppies. There are other little kids who walk around at his age who can only play Mario party on the Nintendo ds, and can't play Resident Evil because its"too scary."  If that's how their parents want to bring them up: Hurray for them.  I am a little different. My son likes 80's horror. I didn't get him into it...he gravitated to it.  Because the films were in color, and he had seen every black and white horror I had to offer.  I didn't want to say"you cannot watch that---its bad" because it would be hypocrisy on my part because I liked the movies, and my parents let me watch them. But he's not an idiot where violence is concerned.  He's well aware of the fact that if Moe pops Larry in the face with a rake, that in real life it would harm or kill Larry.  And that Moe would go to prison. That doesnt stop it from being funny in movieland though. Just like he's aware that a madman chasing someone around the woods with a butcher knife is intended to be scary and not imitated , and that you cannot shoot someone in the arm and "they'll be ok".  Its the movies. I have been injured and he's seen you dont walk away from violent acts as if nothing ever happened. He cannot stand the sight of blood in real life (just like me), but the fake crap on screen doesn't bother him. It also lets me spend time on the couch with my kids and a blanket and a bucket of popcorn watching "monster movies" on Friday nights. I won't be able to do that forever, and they'll have some good memories of me after I am dead and gone. I just recently took my 9 year old to a horror convention.  he met Jason 2,6, and the new one.  there were tons of celebrities there.  But he was the star of the show.  Every star there was amazed at how articulate, intelligent, and unafraid he was.  Discusssing "continuity errors" and "plot holes" at age nine.  An age where most kids cannot write their name in cursive yet.

Comics, video games, cartoons, etc. all have violence of some degree. Yes, even rated programs on tv like TMNT. Unless I am intending to raise my boy to be a little sissy who is afraid of his own shadow, and make him watch nothing but "Dora the Explorer", he will eventually see "violence" in some form. Did our parents shelter our young eyes from the Wolfman or Dracula?  Why not?  They drank blood and tore people apart with their teeth?  Did it make any of us want to do likewise?  Nope. Amazingly enough, I never wanted to put a potato sack over my head and kill campers, slay baby sitters with a butcher knife, or make a razor glove yet my pops let me see all those films growing up. He just cut out the stuff he personally (as my dad) didn't want me seeing.  That's what I do. I also don't want him being a pantywaist who can't look at something scary without running for mommy.

Kids today can appreciate the old stuff a little, but when they walk into a Halloween shop or Haunted House...you don't see Frankie and Drac anymore.  You see Jason and Freddy and Carpenter's Michael Myers.   My son's fourth grade class had a skate party that the school kids all went to.  It was save "Spongebob from the Monsters" held on Friday the 13th.  You cannot isolate them from characters they see for a full month out of every year.  To quote Heather Langenkamp from New Nightmare: "Kids know who Freddy is.  He's Like Santa Claus or King Kong." I am not going to isolate my kids from something I view as harmless after a little parental intervention.  There's the rub.  Every parent is different.  But my kids respect their elders, say yes maam and no sir to their grandparents, do well ins chool, are popular with other kids, attend church weekly and are well adjusted.


But as far as cutting the violence as well?   Well, I view or read up on any monster movie before my kids come to me about it.  If I think its too violent (Chainsaw Massacre, Hills Have Eyes) or the subject matter is too graphic (Excorcist, Silence of the Lambs) then I don't bother to cut it.  They just won't see it, and the film is bypassed altogether. They say "ok" and we move on. No questions asked. For instance, they will never see Rob Zombie Halloween. Period.  They don't even want to. But as far as characters they see on tv, at Halloween,etc. (Jason, Michael Freddy form the 80's), then with a few selective cuts... they become passable. By my standards.  That's the way I run my house. Don't even get me started on films I have heard about like Wolf Creek or Hostel........they are never seeing those.  Even after I die.  Because I'll haunt them.

[mike c]

<sigh>

I only asked because I usually see parents censoring BOTH to the extreme, so your seeming allowance of the kind of violence on display in the majority of the Jason, Freddy and Michael Myers films was quite refreshing, and interesting, which is why I wrote 'Interesting'.

I am not anti-violence (we are members of a horror film forum after all), I wasn't trying to 'raise your kids' for you, I wasn't questioning your manner of parenting nor your right to parent as you see fit, I wasn't questioning your child's hold on (or ability to distinguish fantasy from) reality, I wasn't baiting you, questioning the validity of your beliefs or casting doubt on the way you run your home.

I was just interested in how you came to the method you've found successful for your family thus far.

It reads like you felt a little cornered, maybe; if so, I did not intend that.

Forget I asked.

Mike C.

[Anton Phibes]

Well, that's why I said I was giving you the benefit of the doubt... but would clarify.  ;)Voice inflection is entirely lost in cyberspace.  You cannot tell if someone actually is saying "wow, thats cool" or "what a fool".  This applies to any posts, moreso mine as I am sure I sounded like I was on a soapbox and raving in the earlier one.  Which was not the case.

 Not by you, as you stated, but you would be surprised how many people (even friends) I have heard lectures from, been subjected to the "I would never raise my kids that way" speech, had noses turned up at me and heads shaken as if I were mentally challenged, and been accused of harming my kids in some way by letting them watch monster movies at all (even the beloved black and whites).  Then I have the people on the other end who want to tell me I have no right "censoring" films, and if I cannot watch them as they are then I should just avoid them all together (which is throwing out the baby with the bathwater, IMO).  If I go to the store and pay money for a dvd, I can alter it anyway I please as long as I don't try to enforce my restrictions on others or sell my restricted versions.  As if some actor or director actually cared if I was showing a scene of their movie intact or not.   I get it alot.  I even had a friend tell me I shouldn't let my kids play "guitar hero" because it might lead them down the wrong path in life. Seriously.  I think all of this is a bit extreme.

Its funny. To some people I am too strict.  To some I am too liberal.  But I am just doing the best I can to give my kids a good childhood and protect them at the same time.  The only people whose attitudes I care about in the whole thing is the wife and kids's anyway.  I gotta share a house with them after all.

 If my post seemed defensive, it probably was a little, but not because of anything you wrote. Just my pre-rehearsed speech I have given an upteempth millionth time for folks. It wasn't pointed at you, and my statements were simply meant to clarify how I felt on this issue as well as addressing some pent up angst for those of condescending attitudes towards my "parental wisdom".

No harm no foul.  We good, then?

[Cinemacabre]

Its funny. To some people I am too strict.  To some I am too liberal. 


And, to some, this has gone waaaaaaaay off topic. Can we get back to the subject at hand and maybe later we can start a "How not to raise a 'little sissy' monsterkid" thread.  I respect the hell out of you, AP but I want to hear your views on child rearing in this FM thread about as much as I want to hear your - or anybody else's - view on religion.

[mike c]

We were never bad, Anton. Worry not.

We now return Cinemacabre and everyone else to their regularly scheduled FM/anti-Ferry/le balls dangling thread.

Mike C.

[Wich2]

Guys, put me down as "if it stays civil, It's All Good."

Once you've established a good community like the UMA, nothing keeps the air fresher than allowing a conversation among members to follow a natural tangent - just like it would if we were in Real space, not Cyber.

You can only discuss the differing fingers on Aurora repops so many times...

Great week,
-Craig

[Anton Phibes]

And, to some, this has gone waaaaaaaay off topic. Can we get back to the subject at hand and maybe later we can start a "How not to raise a 'little sissy' monsterkid" thread.  I respect the hell out of you, AP but I want to hear your views on child rearing in this FM thread about as much as I want to hear your - or anybody else's - view on religion.

I knew this was coming. You're right.  Way off topic.  I didn't want to just ignore the conversation and seem even more rude than what I may have already come across as.  Next time, I'll just pm rather than respond in an already existing thread. Sorry.  I can assure you (and everyone else) it won't happen again.

[Toy Ranch]

As far as kids exposed to horror/violence goes, it really depends on the kid.  We let my son see the Addams Family movie when he was little and he had nightmares about Thing for years.  Every time he saw a billboard or something for a watch or can of soda with a hand model holding it, he thought it was a disembodied hand loose on the streets.  Another thing that terrorized him for a long time was Jumanji.  Totally freaked him out.  So we were very careful about what we let him see, because he was sensitive to that stuff more than most kids his age.  Other kids, it doesn't bother. 

Those medieval folks building torture devices and running through the countryside gutting people, or even the ethnic violence in Africa and Eastern Europe...  those folks didn't learn it from horror films.  When the Aztecs had 100,000 heads hanging outside the walls of Technoctitlan, or Ghengis Khan was leading the Mongol invasions, or the Nazis were building death camps, it wasn't a horror movie that inspired them.  With apologies to the thousands of other atrocities committed by humans over the course of our civilization which haven't been mentioned which COULD NOT have been influenced by "playing with toy guns" or "watching horror movies" (both on a mass scale as well as an individual scale i.e. a single murder/torture/etc.) we need to realize that the capacity for extreme violence exists within our species in great abundance, and horror movies are inspired by our history and our nature.   Watching it on a screen does not cause it to exist. 

A kid commits suicide, and was listening to a song about suicide, so (some) people say the song caused the suicide.  Ridiculous.  We frequently hear about child molesting at day care centers, so by the same rationale we could say day care centers cause child molestation.  People who are already THINKING about suicide might become preoccupied with a song about suicide, just as someone who is a pedophile might seek employment in a day care center.  This is not rocket science, and it seems so simple and obvious, but our "find the blame" society looks for the first thing and says "that must be it".  I've listened to lots of songs about suicide but have never wanted to kill myself.  Can't imagine it even.  I've been around lots of little kids but the thought of molesting one has never crossed my mind as something to do.  And I've watched all manner of horror movie without any desire to act it out on someone. 

I don't think people should try to introduce kids to stuff they aren't ready to handle, but what that is or isn't is really different for each kid.  There are kids who see people die in the streets violently at a young age on a regular basis.  That's a lot harder on them than watching a movie, and a movie isn't the reason the people died in the streets violently either.  Maybe if they'd been home watching a movie, they'd still be alive and the kids wouldn't have seen it happen to begin with. 


******I realize nobody criticized anyone's parenting, just an opinion on the topic*************

Also, I"m breaking all this out into a different thread in a minute.

[Toy Ranch]

I think this makes and interesting topic and wanted to get it out of Ray Ferry's thread.  No harm/no foul straying off topic.  We have the tools, we have the power, and we can use it if we need it.  Conversations flow, they don't have to be stuffed into a box.  Carry on... 

[Anton Phibes]

Wow, my off topic discussion spawned into a thread of its own.   Does this mean "I have created a monster"?     

[monsterphile]

It's interesting that this topic came up, as I was thinking about it recently as well.  Anton, I think you're doing a great job with your son.  It sounds like your guidance, which can and does make all the difference, has been the key.  In the pictures from Horror Hound, it looked like he was having a great time and he looks like a great kid.  Your stance on films like HOSTEL are directly in line with mine.  

  I became concerned recently when one of the women who work for me, who knew that I was a horror fan, mentioned that her son loves horror movies.  Her son really isn't her son, he's her boyfriend's son, but she has been the mother figure in most of his life.  The boy's real mother is a drug addict and I believe she might be in jail.  His father, the boyfriend, is apparently a violent alcoholic that has had repeated violent encounters with the girl from work.  She mentioned that they watch a lot of horror movies with the boy.  I met the boy once when she brought him and he mentioned Michael Myers and Jason.  It is my understanding that he has seen these from DVDs and hence unedited.  I'm pretty sure that he just turned 4.  He may actually just have turned 3, but I'm hoping I'm wrong.  I feel that this boy is way too young for the full versions of these and possibly worse movies.  That coupled with a certainly dysfunctional home life is sad and possibly frightening.  

My daughter Catherine likes the spooky stuff, but in limited doses and usually through covered eyes.  She, like Phibes Jr. (sorry I forgot his name),  are good kids in good homes with good parents.  The futures of the UMA and Monster Kid fandom are safe in their hands.

Rob

[tv horror]

I'll tell you a true story, when I very young I went on holiday to the countryside here in N.Ireland. This was the mid sixties, well my Father brought me and my older brothers and sisters to the cinema one night but he did not know that the second feature was the Premature burial. As the film rolled I hid at all the scary bits or so I thought, because everytime the music stopped I looked and in the end I had seen every shock scene. Because we were in the country I was scared silly because of the darkness but the thing that haunted me the most was the tune Molly Malone!  Work out the math Molly Malone+Ireland+common tune=one terrified child almost daily, I would be sitting in school and hear the tune I would be in the street and someone would be whistling it the bloody tune haunted for years. I would never trade that night for anything in the World, now I love the tune it is a great favorite of mine. There is one more thing about modern horror that I must tell you, it happened about 7 years ago here in Belfast, Doug Bradley (Pinhead actor)was at a signing and I was next in line. A man brought a bust of pinhead for him to sign and as he gave Doug the bust the man said this is my son (he was about 10 yrs old) and he loves watching you as Pinhead. At that Doug put the bust down and laid into the guy for not supervising what he could watch as he was only a child. The guy grabbed the bust and left very quickly  with his son in tow, I was told by Doug that the films were made for an adult viewer and that it was wrong of him to  let him see these films.       

[Anton Phibes]

I'll tell you a true story, when I very young I went on holiday to the countryside here in N.Ireland. This was the mid sixties, well my Father brought me and my older brothers and sisters to the cinema one night but he did not know that the second feature was the Premature burial. As the film rolled I hid at all the scary bits or so I thought, because everytime the music stopped I looked and in the end I had seen every shock scene. Because we were in the country I was scared silly because of the darkness but the thing that haunted me the most was the tune Molly Malone!  Work out the math Molly Malone+Ireland+common tune=one terrified child almost daily, I would be sitting in school and hear the tune I would be in the street and someone would be whistling it the bloody tune haunted for years. I would never trade that night for anything in the World, now I love the tune it is a great favorite of mine. There is one more thing about modern horror that I must tell you, it happened about 7 years ago here in Belfast, Doug Bradley (Pinhead actor)was at a signing and I was next in line. A man brought a bust of pinhead for him to sign and as he gave Doug the bust the man said this is my son (he was about 10 yrs old) and he loves watching you as Pinhead. At that Doug put the bust down and laid into the guy for not supervising what he could watch as he was only a child. The guy grabbed the bust and left very quickly  with his son in tow, I was told by Doug that the films were made for an adult viewer and that it was wrong of him to  let him see these films.       

Pinhead is too adult for me and I am nearly 40 .