I was watching The Sound of Music the other day and wondering why I don't watch it like every week. That movie is fantastic. I also think I didn't take full advantage of it when I was young. I'm guessing that it was too long for three kids with no attention spans, so we stuck to Disney most of the time.
ANYWAY, as I have gotten older, I have learned that a lot of parents stop the movie while everything is still happy and cut out out the scary running-from-the-Nazis ending. My parents didn't, because it's the ENDING. Watching a movie and not getting to see the end is infuriating. Plus, I always liked the music at the end of movies, so I totally would have been on to my mom if she just shut the TV off and claimed that was the end. All those other kids must be totally gullible and stupid.
I guess I just don't get it. I mean, every single Disney movie I ever watched was traumatizing. Someone SHOT Bambi's mother?!?!?!! Ursula is going to eat the whole boat and Ariel and Eric will never get to live happily ever after???!?!?!!? How will the Prince EVER get past that fire and dragon to save Aurora??!?!?!!!??? Same difference. Pretty much every kid's movie has some sort of sadness and/or scariness so parents can use it as a teaching moment. I can explain that sometimes there are bad people who want to do bad things to good people.
But, there are some things I can't really explain, so if I COULD skip a scene, I would skip the oldest girl in the orchard with her boyfriend singing "Sixteen going on Seventeen." I can explain Nazis, but I do NOT want to risk them internalizing that stupid "I'll take care of you" line from that dumbass boyfriend who later becomes a Nazi and then sells them out at the end and almost gets them killed.
I mean, obviously I don't want my little girl(s) to think that a man will take care of them and then have them look forward to that instead of looking forward to taking care of themselves, and I don't want my little boy(s) to think they are Neanderthals.
You might be thinking that ONE movie is not going to set my child(ren)'s psyche(s) in stone. Well, I have read enough about serial killers to know that you never know what is going on in their little brains. I can't take the risk!
Also, I probably won't beat them with a rubber hose and encourage them to dress up in clown make-up and teach them how to bury things without leaving a trace. It's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to raising a non-serial killer.
Hell, I'd use that scene to teach them about the feminist movement. "See kids, once upon a time there was Patriarchy, and women were expected to let men take care of them, and men thought they were supposed to take care of women. But then one day, Susan B. Anthony and Gloria Steinem rode into town on these gigantic white horses and defeated Patriarchy. So now women take care of themselves, and men take care of themselves, and everybody is much happier."
ReplyDelete"But mom, what happend to Patriarchy?"
"Well, you see, Patriarchy is kind of like Lord Voldemort. It can't die. You see, it created a whole bunch of horcruxes out of people in the world, and these people keep Patriarchy alive and still believe that women are supposed to be weak and inferior. But don't worry. Because with every generation, a few of Patriarchy's horcruxes get destroyed. And someday, it'll be gone altogether!"
Man, oh man. This would make a GREAT children's book.
I'm pretty sure the commenter above me should write that book, like, now.
ReplyDeleteI'm using The Raisin Girl's explanation for patriarchy from now on, and if i ever have kids they are learning it that way too.
ReplyDeleteI want to watch The Sound of Music now...
While I don't watch The Sound of Music every week, I must have watched the movie at least fifty times, which is 890 times less than Myra Franklin, a woman in Wales who holds the world record. Now there's a serious Julie Andrews nut!
ReplyDeleteEndings suck. Thats why they put them at the end. Duh!
ReplyDeleteAccording to Jeffrey Dahmer's former shrink, Dr. Park Dietz, serial killers are made when they associate sexual feelings with violence and/or blood and gore. So all those horror movies that have sex scenes that turn into guts flying all over the place are training us to be murderers. http://www.slate.com/id/2121404
ReplyDeleteBtw... thanks for ruining the end of the movie! *shakes head* Shame on you.
We used to watch the Sound of Music so freakin much when we were little. I still know it by heart!
ReplyDeleteWe used to watch the Sound of Music so freakin much when we were little. I still know it by heart!
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't watch The Sound of Music every week, I must have watched the movie at least fifty times, which is 890 times less than Myra Franklin, a woman in Wales who holds the world record. Now there's a serious Julie Andrews nut!
ReplyDelete