Our school district offers a summer movie program for elementary-age kids and their families. Basically, we get to go to the movies once a week at a set time, and the price is only $1 per person. All the movies are (supposedly) kids' movies. None of the movies are new releases, but that's OK. It's a really cheap summer diversion, and Dallin looks forward to it every Thursday.
We've seen some fun movies, some better than others of course. However, today we had the opportunity to view a movie that was so bad we ended up walking out. This movie had NO business being shown to a crowd of elementary school kids and their younger siblings.
The movie was Igor. Basically, it's a case of several evil scientists competing for a prize for the most evil invention of the year in a land where evil reigns. Sounds bad? Well, that wasn't the bad part. And I'm sure it had a good ending. One of the evil scientists, who underneath it all is not evil at all, sets out to create a monster that will be the epitome of evil. Only the monster turns out to be good. The other evil scientist wants to steal the creation, and sets out to get the monster from her inventor.
So, the way he sets out to trick the inventor and lure the "good" monster away is through sending his female accomplice to seduce the inventor. Yep, and this is a "kid's movie". Right. The lady shows up in a low-cut blouse designed to leave very little to the imagination, and of course the camera spends most of its time focused right in on that portion of her anatomy. In a kids' movie! An animated kids' movie! (Now, the makers of the movie may have intended it for a more mature audience, I don't know. But the theater owners who programmed this into a summer of family fare for school children surely had to know what the content was!) The visuals, language, actions, even the entire story line were ALL entirely unsuitable for children!
There was a scene right at the beginning where this barmaid" character entered for a few moments. The family behind us got up and left, and I had thoughts of doing the same. But the scene ended quickly, and the character seemed to be more incidental to the story, so we stayed. But later she came back--and stayed, and it was obvious she was not going away, and this whole theme was going to continue to be played out for some time in the movie. At that point I started to feel increasingly more uncomfortable. Yet we stayed. I argued back and forth with myself. I knew I should be setting the example for my kids and walking out. But I rationalized that it was over their heads (which at wasn't, at least not Dallin's head), and hey, no one else was leaving, and boy would Dallin freak if I told him we were going home after he'd already missed last week's movie. I didn't need a huge meltdown right in the middle of a movie theater. My debating went on for a good ten minutes or so.
And then I thought, "What am I doing here???" The spirit was clearly communicating to me that this was not a place where my children and I belonged, and yet I was ignoring it and sitting in my seat. At that point, I gathered up the kids and left. To my surprise, Dallin did not protest at all. Even though he had seemed to be enjoying other parts of the movie, he accepted my explanations and agreed with me that we should leave. This was sobering. I had considered staying because I was not wanting to deal with my child's reaction, yet all along my child was ready to accept my authority, stewardship, whatever you want to call it on this matter. He sensed that something was off too, even though he wouldn't have been able to describe what or why. He was both humble and teachable, yet I almost made the wrong choice and missed out on a great opportunity.
We spent a lot of time afterward discussing what was wrong with the movie and why we left. These issues seem to be coming up a lot lately. Dallin loves to listen to the radio, and he invariably finds the rap station. He loves this type of music and is really attracted to the beat. There have been numerous incidents lately where I've had to make him turn it off after only a minute or so because the lyrics are so awful.
I was recently reading on another blog about Waldorf education, a philosophy I'm very interested in (long blog post on that topic to come sometime in the next few weeks). The blog writer was detailing the "themes" that children study in Waldorf schools each year, themes which are developed to go along with the inner needs of children at each age. Second grade consisted in part of reading fables and studying about saints and heroes. The blog owner mentioned how this correlates really well for children preparing for baptism because they need to be learning to discern good from bad and also to see examples of people who have chosen good. That has been on my mind a lot lately! There have been so many situations in our household where we've needed to clarify the difference between good things and bad things and take a stand, and this movie today was one of those things. I think I am noticing these teaching opportunities much more and realizing that all of this needs to be a big part of our family life this year as Dallin gets ready for baptism. I as a mother need to be more on the ball and recognize that this isn't a game, I can't beat around the bush, I have to be more forward when it comes to standing up against evil, no matter how subtle the form it may take. I have to teach Dallin to take a stand too. Things that maybe could be rationalized a few years ago simply cannot anymore. Virtually nothing is "over his head"!
We've seen some fun movies, some better than others of course. However, today we had the opportunity to view a movie that was so bad we ended up walking out. This movie had NO business being shown to a crowd of elementary school kids and their younger siblings.
The movie was Igor. Basically, it's a case of several evil scientists competing for a prize for the most evil invention of the year in a land where evil reigns. Sounds bad? Well, that wasn't the bad part. And I'm sure it had a good ending. One of the evil scientists, who underneath it all is not evil at all, sets out to create a monster that will be the epitome of evil. Only the monster turns out to be good. The other evil scientist wants to steal the creation, and sets out to get the monster from her inventor.
So, the way he sets out to trick the inventor and lure the "good" monster away is through sending his female accomplice to seduce the inventor. Yep, and this is a "kid's movie". Right. The lady shows up in a low-cut blouse designed to leave very little to the imagination, and of course the camera spends most of its time focused right in on that portion of her anatomy. In a kids' movie! An animated kids' movie! (Now, the makers of the movie may have intended it for a more mature audience, I don't know. But the theater owners who programmed this into a summer of family fare for school children surely had to know what the content was!) The visuals, language, actions, even the entire story line were ALL entirely unsuitable for children!
There was a scene right at the beginning where this barmaid" character entered for a few moments. The family behind us got up and left, and I had thoughts of doing the same. But the scene ended quickly, and the character seemed to be more incidental to the story, so we stayed. But later she came back--and stayed, and it was obvious she was not going away, and this whole theme was going to continue to be played out for some time in the movie. At that point I started to feel increasingly more uncomfortable. Yet we stayed. I argued back and forth with myself. I knew I should be setting the example for my kids and walking out. But I rationalized that it was over their heads (which at wasn't, at least not Dallin's head), and hey, no one else was leaving, and boy would Dallin freak if I told him we were going home after he'd already missed last week's movie. I didn't need a huge meltdown right in the middle of a movie theater. My debating went on for a good ten minutes or so.
And then I thought, "What am I doing here???" The spirit was clearly communicating to me that this was not a place where my children and I belonged, and yet I was ignoring it and sitting in my seat. At that point, I gathered up the kids and left. To my surprise, Dallin did not protest at all. Even though he had seemed to be enjoying other parts of the movie, he accepted my explanations and agreed with me that we should leave. This was sobering. I had considered staying because I was not wanting to deal with my child's reaction, yet all along my child was ready to accept my authority, stewardship, whatever you want to call it on this matter. He sensed that something was off too, even though he wouldn't have been able to describe what or why. He was both humble and teachable, yet I almost made the wrong choice and missed out on a great opportunity.
We spent a lot of time afterward discussing what was wrong with the movie and why we left. These issues seem to be coming up a lot lately. Dallin loves to listen to the radio, and he invariably finds the rap station. He loves this type of music and is really attracted to the beat. There have been numerous incidents lately where I've had to make him turn it off after only a minute or so because the lyrics are so awful.
I was recently reading on another blog about Waldorf education, a philosophy I'm very interested in (long blog post on that topic to come sometime in the next few weeks). The blog writer was detailing the "themes" that children study in Waldorf schools each year, themes which are developed to go along with the inner needs of children at each age. Second grade consisted in part of reading fables and studying about saints and heroes. The blog owner mentioned how this correlates really well for children preparing for baptism because they need to be learning to discern good from bad and also to see examples of people who have chosen good. That has been on my mind a lot lately! There have been so many situations in our household where we've needed to clarify the difference between good things and bad things and take a stand, and this movie today was one of those things. I think I am noticing these teaching opportunities much more and realizing that all of this needs to be a big part of our family life this year as Dallin gets ready for baptism. I as a mother need to be more on the ball and recognize that this isn't a game, I can't beat around the bush, I have to be more forward when it comes to standing up against evil, no matter how subtle the form it may take. I have to teach Dallin to take a stand too. Things that maybe could be rationalized a few years ago simply cannot anymore. Virtually nothing is "over his head"!
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