Analyzing Movies for Kid Viewing
Feb 16th, 2007 by jeremy
As parents of quickly growing young children, my wife and I are often faced with the dilemma of what movies to allow our kids to see. Kids are so impressionable, and what they see in movies sticks with them far more than I think we even realize. With that in mind, we often fall back on pre-screening movies unless it comes from a studio (i.e. Disney/Pixar) we feel tend to trust.
My son is much like any boy and is attracted to violence in movies and games, perhaps even more than normal. He loves the “ninja fighting” and such. With that in mind, he is always asking to watch movies like Superman Returns and Spiderman 2. He is almost 8, so when a movie is PG-13, we just simply say no. Think on those movies. You would think that either would be fine, they are based on comic book characters, right? I point out in Superman Returns the extreme beating Superman takes when his powers are temporarily lost on the island…not just a typical comic book fight. Spiderman 2 I point out the “surgery scene,” need I say more? That was a lot closer to a horror movie than I was expecting.
So how do we really know the content of a movie prior to viewing when we have just a generalized rating system in place. PG and PG-13 really don’t tell me much. My family doesn’t view R and above anyway, so I leave those out. Even for my wife and I, we would like to know the contents of a movie to know if it is something to avoid even with a PG-13 rating. There are options out there. See the following sites:
There are others out there, but both of these sites do a great job covering current movies and giving you the nitty gritty of what really is displayed and said in the movie. This may be a bit extreme for some viewers, but some of us really would like to know the details. Both sites push for you to subscribe for all the features, but the free features have covered my needs.
Check ‘em out and feel more educated before heading to the theater or renting that DVD.
Jeremy, That is a great website! We had our February vacation last week and I agonized over whether or not to bring my two children to Bridge to Terabithia. My daugher age 8 wanted to see it very badly. My son is 13 so I was ok taking him. I finally took them to see the movie at the end of the week after hearing from several people who had seen the movie say that it was very good. And indeed it was. If I had known about this website sooner, I would have taken them to see it earlier in the week! Thanks for the tip! Betsy