Family Movie Night

While we don’t have any children of our own, we do have plenty of nieces and nephews, and I certainly have my fair share of brothers and sisters I was responsible for helping to raise. When it would be time to watch a movie, I never really paid attention to ratings, as growing up, family movie night meant Nightmare on Elm Street, Alien (and Aliens), Terminator (and Terminator 2), and pretty much what most would consider not appropriate for children 8 and under to be watching. So of this, I am certain: You can’t decide a movie’s watchability based on its rating; I am not qualified to judge a movie’s watchability based on the viewer.

A while back, we were watching our nephews, who were six and four at the time, and thought they’d like to watch Jaws. So being the cool uncles, we put the movie in and let them watch it, and they were completely enthralled by the shark. More than halfway through the movie, and well after *** SPOILER ALERT!!!*** Alex gets eaten by the Great White, the older nephew keeps asking, “When are they going to save Alex?” and when they get on the boat to go attack the shark answered himself, “Oh! Now they’re going to save Alex!” His little brother, Jericho, only four at the time mind you, gives him an incredulous look and informs him, “Alex is dead, Elijah, the shark at him.” Now, Elijah had to think about this for a second, and in his logic, asked, “Then why are they going to find the shark if they aren’t going to save Alex?” to which Jericho responded, after rolling his eyes (and this is no lie), “To kill the shark,” before turning back to the TV to finish watching the movie. Watching Elijah get all teary eyed, I thought to myself that I’d have to reassure him that the possibility of him getting eaten by a shark were quite low, and at the most he’d lose a limb, but fortunately the animatronics shark showed back up on the screen, and his eyes were once again glued to the TV.

I mean, I should have known that I didn’t have the ability to judge a movie’s appropriateness for the audience when my mother and I decided that Candyman would be an excellent choice for my sisters combined birthday party sleepover, filled with over a dozen seven to ten year old girls. Or maybe when my little sister and I decided our ten year old brother was old enough to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show, since that was how old she was when she first watched it. And it doesn’t seem to stop at movies, as when my other sister showed up and we were watching Queer as Folk and she blurted out, “I didn’t know two guys could do it like that!”

No, I don’t think we have had good judgment on the matter of what kids are able to not only comprehend, but also understand that a movie is only fiction, and not real. Although, I do have to say, my little brother and cousin watching The Blair Witch Project were totally convinced it was real, and I played up their inattentiveness by saying that we could go to those woods as they were only fifteen minutes away. Yes, I have a bit of an evil sadistic streak in me, but I think we have gotten to a place in our lives where we can be better judges of what is appropriate and not for kids to be viewing. Of course, there is still a part of me that wants to watch Pan’s Labyrinth or Grave of the Fireflies with the little ones.