How Movies Affected You

[Cmichaels]

When I was younger my sister, mom, and I watched all kinds of scary movies. A couple of examples being It and Bless the Child. My sister is impossible to scare, and I on the other hand am pretty jumpy.

My cousins refuse to watch anything scary, and as they approach being adults still can only watch Nickelodeon(?) and cartoons. I have not been told I can't watch anything pretty much ever.

So my questions to you all are how have movies and/or TV shows affected you?
And will you stop your kids from watching certain TV programs or channels until they are older?

First Topic for me woo

 

[The Afrodactyl]

Well, The Expendables made me want to kill people with hammers.

The children can watch whatever they want as long as I deem it suitable for them.

 

[lee1287]

My kids wont know what TV is. They will work the fields!

Movies make me check under my bed. Inception made me paranoid about people in my dreams.

 

[XJ-0461]

If I have kids, I'd keep to the ratings for the most part (eg. won't let a six year old watch Fight Club) but if I think a child can handle it, then I might let them watch something that's intended for audiences a bit older than they are. For example, I might let my nine year old cousin watch Hellboy, but not Reservoir Dogs.

 

[Jack_Uzi]

How some movies affected me and in what way? I don't know, thinking of it rigth now.. but.. no. I do know that they actually do. For some strange reason, I've watched the movie fight club a certain times in my life that weren't that good.

On your question how to prevent kids from watching things? Just stick by them when they are watching tv and take the remote with you if you need to leave momentarily.

 

[Kpt._Rob]

Well there are some things I certainly won't show my children. Subjecting children to something like Hostel, for instance, would be beyond irresponsible. I do think there things I would let them watch that other parents might not let their kids watch... for instance, I don't think it's a really big deal if something has swearing, violence or a little gore (though I would hesitate to expose a child to explicit or graphic violence, and large amounts of gore as well), or brief nudity (I'm not talking about porn here, that's not for kids, obviously. I'm talking about movies that have love scenes and stuff like that though, for instance, no one died from seeing a breast when they watched the original Terminator.)

It's hard to say exactly the extent to which media influences us. Obviously it's not absolute, I've watched more than my fair share of slasher films, and have yet to start running around with a glove that has knives on it killing people, nor would I want to. Still, children are particularly impressionable... Nature/Nurture aside, I think it's important not to ruin a child's innocence too early, the world will ruin it with time, but they should be allowed at least for a while to just be kids. That said, I would also like to expose my children to some more thoughtful media. Barney and Sesame Street are fine for learning to share and count and all that jazz, but I'd also like my children to see things with deeper themes. Stuff like Death Note, Fullmetal Alchemist, Cowboy Bebop, and Kino's Journey I don't feel would be too inappropriate, and at the same time all of them have much deeper issues at heart. Granted, depending on the age at which they saw them, many of the themes these shows present might be a little bit lofty for a child who was too young, but if they were old enough to even get a bit of it. Okay... so it's all anime... but I like anime, and it's got much deeper themes than the stupid shit I watched as a kid.

 

[Corpse XxX]

I dont really like watching scary movies..

When i was a little kid, i was so scared once by a movie that i did not manage to sleep for almost two days..
I was really utterly freaked out..

I like better to laugh and be in aww of a good action comedy.. Nothing is like a blend of those two genres..

Also im becoming a dad for the first time in March, so will hold off the scary movies for quite a while yet

 

[tzimize]

Well there are some things I certainly won't show my children. Subjecting children to something like Hostel, for instance, would be beyond irresponsible. I do think there things I would let them watch that other parents might not let their kids watch... for instance, I don't think it's a really big deal if something has swearing, violence or a little gore (though I would hesitate to expose a child to explicit or graphic violence, and large amounts of gore as well), or brief nudity (I'm not talking about porn here, that's not for kids, obviously. I'm talking about movies that have love scenes and stuff like that though, for instance, no one died from seeing a breast when they watched the original Terminator.)

It's hard to say exactly the extent to which media influences us. Obviously it's not absolute, I've watched more than my fair share of slasher films, and have yet to start running around with a glove that has knives on it killing people, nor would I want to. Still, children are particularly impressionable... Nature/Nurture aside, I think it's important not to ruin a child's innocence too early, the world will ruin it with time, but they should be allowed at least for a while to just be kids. That said, I would also like to expose my children to some more thoughtful media. Barney and Sesame Street are fine for learning to share and count and all that jazz, but I'd also like my children to see things with deeper themes. Stuff like Death Note, Fullmetal Alchemist, Cowboy Bebop, and Kino's Journey I don't feel would be too inappropriate, and at the same time all of them have much deeper issues at heart. Granted, depending on the age at which they saw them, many of the themes these shows present might be a little bit lofty for a child who was too young, but if they were old enough to even get a bit of it. Okay... so it's all anime... but I like anime, and it's got much deeper themes than the stupid shit I watched as a kid.

Very well thought out and I completely agree with everything.

Especially I too would like my kids if I ever have any, to consume media a bit deeper than spongebob or teletubbies *shiver*. Off the top of my head I can name Naruto and Avatar as series I would love to watch with my potential kids. A lot of action, adventure and excitement but also focus on emotions and relationships between people. There are far too few stories like that made for kids. Death Note might be a bit extreme, at least for the youngest ones :>

 

[the Dept of Science]

You know how when you are really young, you generally have one movie which you watch at least once per day for an extended period of time (>1 month). I had a friend in primary school who's movie was Terminator 2. He turned out pretty normal.

I watched tonnes of 18 movies and played, amongst other things, GTA 3 when I was about 12, and even though I can now watch a movie like Saw and feel pretty desensitised to it, I'm actually quite squeamish in real life. I'm ok with movie gore but any real gore and I'm not a happy bunny.

I know it would be wrong to go from this to saying "therefore it must be true for everyone". I do think however that if a kid is fairly intelligent and well balanced, then having them watch more adult movies isn't too big a problem (within reasonable boundaries obviously).