Are “Dark” Movies OK For Kids?
Growing up, I’ve been a huge movie fan, thanks to my mom. My mom has always been a huge fan of criminal/action/thriller movies for as long as I can remember, naturally, it became my hobby as well. Since a young age, probably from elementary school, I considered myself being more mature compared to others my age, so I found the cartoons they watch so “childish” and my criminal movies as the best kind of entertainment. Yet I have to admit it is a childish idea to think that, but I’ve never realized I was watching movies that were not supposed to show to children. Since starting to watch movies with my mom, she has never limited my curiosity in movies, books, or any kind of art.
When I was scrolling through ideas of writing prompts, this topic popped out and made me think back to my childhood experiences. The controversy that the article poses about many adults tends to shield minors from absorbing materials that they considered as “dark” is truly beneficial to the young audience, and attracted many teenagers to reflect their experiences and opinions in the comment, in which many of them said we should present various content to children. In my opinion, adults should not block the opportunity of exploration from children in their most curious ages and blame entertaining material for having bad influences on children because of children’s bad behaviors. What outweighs every other factor that impacts a child’s behaviors and values is family education and influence.
I watched an episode of “Late Night with Seth Meyers”, with the famous American movie director Quentin Tarantino talking about his childhood with movies. He talks about growing up in the 1960s and 70s, which he claims “was the greatest time of American movies ever”, he was seeing all the movies that other kids in his class weren’t allowed to watch during third grade, such as “The Godfather”, “The French Connection”, and “The Wild Bunch”. At one point he realized his mother takes him to movies that other kids weren’t allowed to see, and he asked his mom why she took him to see all those movies. His mother said that movies are just movies, and they’re not going to screw someone up just from seeing them. She said, “I’m actually more worried about you watching the news than a movie.” I personally love Quentin Tarantino’s movies a lot, and undoubtedly his talent cannot be separated from the open-minded support from his family.
While many parents often think their children will imitate the bad behaviors from movies if they don’t limit the entertainment sources from the children, yet every kid is different, and every movie is different. Again, in my opinion, nothing impacts a child more than family influence. It’s about reflecting how a child’s attitude and morals are set in the first place before judging the media for the responsibilities that they were not designed to take. Although I’m not suggesting every parent to have zero limitation upon the content that minors are receiving, it’s crucial to understand the possible consequence of overprotection, causing the opposite extreme, in which the child becomes easy to influence and manipulate because they can’t make decisions for themselves due to their lack of experience and judgement.
The interview with Quentin Tarantino:
schiu • October 9, 2021
Ella Xu October 12, 2021 - 2:41 am
Hey Selene,
I really enjoyed reading about the topic you chose to write about this week. The acceptableness of “dark” movies for child audiences never crossed my mind much, but I think it’s an important thing to consider so I’m glad you took the time to explore it. I agree with you that familial factors influence a child’s behavior much more than what they may see through a screen.After all, what’s seen through media can’t be processed without social cues from real people, not just actors behind a screen.
I also believe that exposure to “dark” movies or movies with heavier themes is integral in a child’s development. It gives them exposure to new ways of thought, and even if it is jarring at first to see darker concepts portrayed on screen, it offers children an opportunity to exercise their coping mechanisms on a small scale, such as sleeping the night after watching a scary movie, and can really help prepare them for harder life situations down the road. Personally, I think I could’ve used a broader exposure to scary or dark movies when I was a child. I remember when my mother first took me to see Coraline in theaters, and I was so scared that I coldn’t sleep alone for the next week! I think that if I had developed my coping skills more and been put into more situations like that were my psychological limits were exercised, I would’ve been better off. Thanks for your perspective!
Ella
Jackie Liu October 12, 2021 - 3:06 pm
Selene –
Firstly wow, honestly, I haven’t heard too many arguments concerning this topic since, simply, not many people think or talk about stuff like this. I completely agree with what you’re saying, when parents take this idea of sheltering their children from dark concepts or movies, it usually does end up doing the opposite. I mean, I thought about sheltered children who weren’t allowed phones, to drink, to do anything that a teenager usually has the freedom to do, and usually, it leads to the opposite happening because they’ve been stifled for so long. I even remember this article I read in AP Psychology in which violent instances were shown to children did not necessarily prompt violent behaviors so it really was extremely intuitive of you to mention that there are in fact other factors that would explain their behavior. In some ways, parents could almost be rationalizing or excusing the actions of their children by blaming dark movies so it was extremely enlightening to hear from a teenager’s perspective that indeed, we are all held responsible and “dark” movies are dark but do not determine who a person is nor what they are inclined to do. Thank you for talking so honestly and telling us more about yourself as well!
Jackie
Helena Hitzeman October 14, 2021 - 8:57 pm
Great post, Selene! There are so many angles to this topic. Thanks for including the interview.
pafemali October 15, 2021 - 6:40 pm
Hi Selene!
First of all, I can’t express how much I agree with your blog. I feel like nobody talks about what I “appropriate” to show younger kids and when they are able to watch movies with intense language and gore. I grew up in a family very similar to yours, with my mom putting very little limitation on what we could and could not watch. Of course, at first, my mother attempted to be the “perfect” parent, telling me that I was not able to watch shows from Cartoon Network or Spongebob, however, after my sister was born, and especially after my youngest sister was born, she essentially gave up. She let us watch horror movies, action, thrillers, and even comedy movies that were probably way too inappropriate for children who were not even teenagers yet. My sister was even watching the show “Friends” at the young age of six years old. I do not feel that being exposed to these sorts of movies has made us behave in any other way than how we were raised, as we simply just learned about the world and what some things meant before others, which is not always a bad thing. In the end, I totally agree with your point about some parents being way too overprotective when it comes to the content that their child is exposed to, and although this can be a good thing at times, I feel that parents are taking it to extremes that do not really end up helping their children. Thank you so much for sharing this blog because I completely relate to it and agree with your points!
wmnagai October 17, 2021 - 10:43 pm
Hi Selene!
This is such an important topic to be talking about and one that I have not considered very much, so it was very interesting to read your viewpoint on the matter! My family was somewhere in the middle of the ¨what kind of content can your kids watch” spectrum. My mom was definitely the more protective of what she thought my sister and I should be watching when we were around the age when we began to grow out of cartoons and Disney Channel. I wasn’t allowed to watch PG-13 movies until I was 11 or 12 versus many of my friends and cousins who began watching them when they were around 8 years old. I think there is validity to the approach that my mother took. I was the type of kid who would have nightmares for a month if I watched a scary movie, so I have an appreciation for my mother not allowing me to watch movies she knew would make me scared because it most definitely contributed to more restful nights of sleep. My dad on the other hand was much more in favor of allowing my sister and me to watch more mature content. I think that dynamic struck a nice balance in my house. I agree with you Selene, there should definitely be a certain degree of freedom that kids can have in watching a range of content because children are already becoming more and more sheltered. This was an amazing post!
cxgu October 29, 2021 - 1:36 am
Hi Selene,
First of all, I just want to mention that I think this is a really cool and thought-provoking topic & overall a super good choice to write about for a blog!
Although I can’t personally say that I am a fan of dark movies or thriller movies like you, I’m definitely in agreement and think that children should be given the freedom to explore the content that interests them (with some restrictions of course).
I’ve learned so much from my consumption of media and honestly, a lot of these ‘darker’ movies with more adult themes promote very good discussion and reflection. Just a thought- If you haven’t already seen it, I think you would probably enjoy Black Mirror! It definitely delves into some adult themes and although most of the endings are sad, the production and plots are really great!
Additionally, I actually remember looking at a few psychological studies looking to observe the media’s effect on children in terms of aggression. I believe in the famous Bobo Doll experiment, children who see aggressive or violent behavior modeled by an adult are much more likely to act in a similar manner.
All things considered though, I do think whether or not ‘bad behavior’ is learned definitely depends on what kind of media and what kind of overall environment a child is in!
Christina
sabetjemann October 29, 2021 - 2:41 pm
Selene,
I really like the points you brought up in this post! I too was raised on classics not necessarily meant for kids, and I agree that this was definitely beneficial. Being exposed to “darker” content at a younger age matures you and teaches you about the reality of the world. Otherwise, you’re being sheltered, watching movies that society deems “appropriate” for you. I like being able to talk with my parents about movies and have actual meaningful conversations about good movies.
For me, the first introduction into more serious movies was the 1982 Gandhi movie I watched with my family when I was about ten. A stark contrast from the Disney channel I loved to watch, this movie immediately moved into deeper concepts of death and struggle. To this day I still remember this movie, specifically the major death scene, and I think being exposed to that so young taught me what the real world was like. Not everything is like Disney or cartoons, and more kids need to be exposed to these realities to help them mature. Overall, I really enjoyed reading about your opinions on this controversial topic!
imgarcia October 29, 2021 - 5:26 pm
Hi Selene,
I really enjoyed reading your post. Your relationship with movies reminds me of my relationship with music. Growing up, my mom would always blast music while we were cleaning, cooking, or getting up in the morning. She would play us all of her favorite music from the ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s. She never filtered the music we listened to because she believes that music is an art form and art shouldn’t be filtered. I think the same is true for movies. Movies are a form of art and shouldn’t necessarily be limited to a certain age group. I do think that if a movie is overly graphic or incredibly scary then it probably wouldn’t be wise to let a young child watch it. If you know that it would scare them or they wouldn’t enjoy it because they are too young to fully appreciate the full meaning behind the movie then the art behind the movie is lost. I agree with your point that family/ everyday life will have a much bigger impact on how a kid acts than the media they consume. Overall I agree with your perspective and found it very insightful.
vthakur1 November 8, 2021 - 6:14 pm
Hello Selene,
I really liked your article and what you brought up. Censorship of content to children especially nowadays is fairly prevalent and I like to think of how it plays a role in how we grow up. A lot of things I’ve seen about cartoons and shows to kids in the 90’s vs. now its clear that child friendly can be taken to the extremes- many shows of which have become so sheltered that they have no real substance or learning points within them.
I connected with this prompt because my media was fairly regulated as a kid (I was a pbs child) and so for the better/ and or worse I ended up becoming a rebel, so while I didn’t watch a ton of TV I ended up reading a lot of YA novels fairly young. I connected a lot of your ideas on media with reading because a lot of the same sheltering happens.
Because the books I read were in libraries and not titles my parents knew they didn’t think much of it and probably assumed that they were ‘tailored to my age’ so mostly as I grew up I took the reins of what I read and I was given near full freedoms.
My younger brother, younger by a lot, however has exposure to content which I was declined when I was his age and I think in some ways he is much more knowledgeable- he watches many more shows, is exposed to more varied themes, and in general through media/ news etc. is very connected to current events.
I completely agree with you that it depends on the household, and I’d add that it probably depends on age/ era, but I think that more freedoms should be granted to children in choosing what they watch and read to be less sheltered and generally develop a broader worldview.