Which movies are for the kids?

Prahlad was already fond of, or should I say mad about cars and can identify most of them that goes on the road. And recently he’s become mad about the Cars movie. He loves the movie (and so do me and my husband). We watched Cars 2 in the theatres with him but not Cars 1 as he was not born then. One day my husband was downloading some old Disney movies like Bambi and Lion king and also downloaded Cars. So now Prahlad watches that movie at least twice in a week. Though he is not old enough to understand the moral and the characters in that movie, he has a few favorites. Doc, surprisingly is his favorite among the rest. Of course he likes Lightning McQueen and Mater but for some reason he loves Doc and keeps asking if he can have a Doctor Hudson car to play with.

But every time I see that movie I’m all in awe of the characterization and the message that movie conveys. That racing is not all about winning and how bad attitude don’t get you friends etc. It’s a lesson a lot of us can learn from that kids’ movie. On the contrary, we wanted to watch this ‘Nan E’ movie because of all the good reviews it got and someone suggested we take our kid along as he’d enjoy the movie. But since we wanted him to spend some time with his grandparents, we left him and went for the movie. Though the movie was good, there were also lots of violence and negativity in that movie which the kids can’t take. It’s not a movie for the kids, yes. But to think that a movie on some animal or insect would entertain a kid is nonsense. (we noticed a lot of them brought their kids and cousins for this movie) That the hero was not in the human form but in the form of a housefly is the only difference. But for that, scenes of cars flying and glasses shattering and evil spirits were all present making it not a worthy watch for the kids.

I think it’s the responsibility of the parents to make sure what sort of movies they can take the kids for. Most of our Tamil movies have a good dose of sex and violence and don’t fit into the category of family watching together. I have till today wondered how a movie like ‘Velayudam’ acted by Vijay was so popular among kids. I couldn’t sit even half way through the movie since the violence and the re-recording were so disturbing. Then imagine what sort of impact it’d have on kids. I wonder if the parents think about the impact or just see it as the kid having some fun. While we all have grown up watching movies where some scenes are not appropriate to us and it has not created so much of impact in the general sense, it still becomes very important to at least ask the kids and understand what they interpret out of the action scenes they see.

And the next time we want to watch a movie with the family, parents can find out from their friends who have watched, if it’s appropriate to watch with kids. And if there are scenes of sex or violence, we need to talk to the kid in an appropriate manner so that they don’t get any bad messages out of it. In today’s world, movies are just one little part of the entire media industry and hence it’s the parent’s utmost responsibility to decide and let the kids know what is right and what is not. Talking it out with kids is much better than assuming they are ignorant.

Swetha