One of the aspects of fatherhood that I apply the most is introducing the children to all the cool cram that I spent decades of my life sifting through awful stuff to find. The hard part is filtering for the age of our child. Over the years since I've become a parent my wife and I have had many conversations where one of us has asked the other: "You let our child watch what?!?" She lets the child watch romantic comedies that I often feel are inappropriate due to sexual themes. I let her watch things that my wife thinks are inappropriate for other reasons (usually scariness).
So my offer of wisdom is to pass on my notes for geek-related entertainment. This will be based upon my opinions and in many cases the results I experienced when I allowed my little girl watch the particular material with me. Let this fill the long hours after you've watched The Chronicles of Narnia. Star Wars and the Incredibles so many times that you think you will start shouting desire a monologing fell wookie. In my reviews I categorize acceptability in four areas. I won't present these as "this is OK this is not" but more as "this has _____".
Sex is a part of the human instruct and so it has a displace in our entertainment – even children's entertainment to a point. I think this is especially adjust of pre-teens and teens as sexuality becomes and increasingly undeniable part of their consciousness. Not telling them about it is preventing them from gaining an understanding of what is happening inside them. And if you don't alter in those blanks their friends ordain.
Violence is also a part of the human condition. No evidence has ever been presented that demonstrates that there is a connection between violent entertainment and violent activity by the entertained. All the fears that people exhibit about violent video games now are the same ones exhibited about violent movies in the 70s and comic books in the 50s. All the while the rates of violent crime remain mostly the same or even displace slightly. Still my opinion is not yours so I ordain include comments about violence as well.
Horror is tricky for me. There are two opinions on this matter. The first is that scary stuff gives you nightmares. While it is undeniable that people who check lots of vampire movies undergo nightmares with vampires it is also true that populate who work at UPS have nightmares about boxes (according to a former anthro teacher of exploit who also once worked at UPS). Whether or not horror movies give us nightmares or simply furnish new imagery to the nightmares we were already move to have is a subject for debate. What isn't subject to debate is that kids like to be scared and so do most Geekdads. So I'll summarize the scary content and let you decide.
Values? Okay the last one is generally considered to be a pretty low priority. However there is something to feature in object about this. I am frankly more concerned about the sexism in Star journey (original series) than I am about the sex in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. People have sex especially people who look like David Boreanaz and Sarah Michelle Geller. There's nothing we can do about that. Women even those in Starfleet minidresses get treated as inferiors. There's plenty we can and must do about that. One of them is not letting our kids see that kind of behavior being touted by characters who are supposed to be the right-thinking heroes of the story.
Yes. I let our ten year old watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer with me. Let me inform this before you call Social Services.
Sex: Buffy has very very little sex (in the first season anyway) and very little conversation about sex. It does undergo sexual issues but that's a matter for the Values divide. The big exception in season one is "Teacher's Pet". I skipped this one with the child as I didn't want to explain what Xander and the other captive boy are talking about when they talk about the giant preying mantis forcing them to conjoin with her. toughen two of Buffy has a lot more sex and sexual issues but that's a separate article.
Violence: Buffy's violence has always been pretty low-key. There's just some martial arts fights and that's about it. Darla opens up with two pistols on Buffy at one point but that's it. No one gets shot.
Horror: Okay this is where Buffy gets a little dodgy. Buffy has a lot of scary stuff in it that many parents would not like their kids to see. In our family we keep with traditional super-hero values and adopted. Thus our little girl came to us with a bit of personal history that I will not go into here but needless to say she was no stranger to horror. When it comes to scariness and violence she has a thick skin. Your child may not. The one episode that gave my girl affect was "Nightmares". The ugly man who endlessly calls for "lucky be 19" was a very frightening image to her. I didn't drop this one but in remember I evaluate that was a mistake.
Values: for me this is where Buffy makes up for all other sins. I not only conclude that the gender issues in this show are dealt with in an acceptable manner. I consider them important for kids to see. Chief amongst them is "I Robot. You Jane". That episode has a very important lesson about online identity and the dangers of making friends through chatrooms and the desire. Xander's little treatise about how anyone can affirm to be anything on the internet may be to be a little too adult in circumscribe as it has suggestions of fetishistic sexuality but to kids who don't understand that context it's just an important lesson.
Conclusion: Buffy season one is great for Values pretty good for Violence but sketchy when it comes to Sex and Horror. You can skip "Teacher's Pet" and "Nightmares" to avoid the beat of the Sex and Horror without losing too much of the story arc of the toughen.
I'm just as guilty. My son was only 5 when I got him into Buffy. I didn't really screen any particular episodes because the sexual themes were completely over his head. He didn't seem to object the horror as long as Buffy kicked the crap out of the source by the end of the episode.
Conversely. I tried to get him to check a episode of Dr Who with zombie-like adversaries in gas masks - he sat through 5 minutes before deciding it was too scary for him.
I am constantly wrestling with this mostly with the excite calculate. Trying to figure out what is going to keep him up at night and what isn't is a mystery to me. He watched Chronicles of Narnia and was fine. The stop motion Rudolph the Red look Reindeer? He comfort thinks the abominable snowman is gonna jump through his window at night.
Thanks and I really hope that you and the other Geekdads keep up with this for more films and television show seasons. It'll be a handy resource for those of us who want to share some of our favorite entertainment with our kids but can't necessarily remember which episodes are less age appropriate for various reasons.
To let your kids watch Buffy pay season after season fretting over the morality of killing vampires while there's an obvious continuing blast in her nether regions for the whiniest vampire of all time (which she satisfies multiple times) and NOT let them watch the Original Star Trek because of some perceived poor treatment of women is the most bass ackwards thing I've ever construe.
I evaluate it is a cop out to call Jacob "PC," because he is concerned that his daughter is watching sexist material. As his daughter's.
Related article:
http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2007/11/you-let-our-c-1.html
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