Some parents insist on taking kids to inappropriate films

Recently, I went to see the movie "Watchmen." This movie is rated R, and it has extremely violent and explicit sexual scenes in it. What bothered me was that I noticed a man had brought a very small child -- she couldn't have been more than 5 -- to this movie.

I can't help but to believe that these extremely gory and sexual scenes would have an impact on the child. Is it our place to gently talk to the man and tell him that the movie isn't appropriate for the child, or should the theaters themselves be more vigilant to this type of situation? I just think someone should do something; what type of society is this when we stand idly by while small children are subjected to images of blood, sex and violence?

-- S., Las Vegas

Wow. And again, wow. Even I know not to take a 5-year-old to see "Watchmen."

Now, I say it that way because I must tell you: There is a long-standing tension between me and my sons' mother regarding child-appropriate levels of plot intensity and visual depiction of trauma, violence or sexuality. Not necessarily a problem. When it works in mutual respect, the tension can strike a nice gender balance.

For my kids, I tend to make those judgment calls based upon my own childhood experience. By the age of 5 or 6, I was already collecting, painting and assembling plastic Aurora Monster models, based on the Hollywood characters from 1930s-'40s horror films -- Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, King Kong, the Mummy, et al. And, at that same age, I was watching those same monster movies on Saturday morning.

OK, often watching with my eyes shut, or hiding behind a fort I'd made of couch cushions and blankets.

I was banished from the room, however, when my mother was watching Alfred Hitchcock or "The Twilight Zone." So, though they never shared their criteria, I know my parents were making judgment calls, too.

I was 10 when I sat at a drive-in with my parents watching "Chuka," an old Western starring Rod Taylor. Besieged in a fort, facing certain death at the hands of attacking Indians, the female protagonist climbs the ladder into the stable loft to lie down and "make out" with Chuka (Rod Taylor.) Then she sits up, removes her shirt, lies back down and resumes smooching. I remember feeling embarrassed to see a woman in her bra. I had no idea -- really, I didn't -- why the woman preferred kissing without her shirt.

God bless my mother! I inquired about it the next morning, and thus began not my first but my most explicit "birds and bees" tutorial.

I say all this so I can state the obvious: the filmmaking in my coming of age was about art, imagination and inference. More like stage plays than real depictions. Modern filmmaking prides itself in using lighting, camera angles and special effects to depict uncensored and uninterpreted events. We call it realism.

Literal visual imagery -- especially intense, primal imagery -- is too much for children, developmentally speaking. The reason we talk to children so often in fairy tales and "let's pretend" is precisely to develop their ability to imagine and interpret. Thus we shape them to be able to experience, absorb and integrate life as life is.

But here's the deal: The laws of the land have decided to honor an individual parent's right to take a child of any age to an R-rated movie. Those same laws restrict that same parent's right to sit with that same child in a bar. So, your 5-year-old can watch you watch Jodie Foster get raped in "The Accused," but not watch you drink at a bar. You can, however, get totally blazed in front of your kids at a football game. Just not at a bar. OK, then. Got it.

Taking a 5-year-old to see "Watchmen" is, at best, despicably lazy or culpably ignorant and narcissistically oblivious. But, legally, you have no recourse, nor does the theater.

Personal crusade? Right there in the theater? Communicate your disapproval?

I've done it, from time to time. It helps me feel better about myself, but, beyond that, it's mostly just provocative and ineffectual.

Narcissistic parenting patterns dominate the current landscape of our culture. And, because envy is narcissism's necessary companion, we envy a child's innocence. So we blithely relieve them of it at an early age, and call that being a modern, hip, liberated (not-overprotective) parent. And, of course, don't forget the narcissist's most cherished parental value: Mind your own business!

We are so cool.

Originally published in View News, April 21, 2009.