Movies

Bad Parenting Tipping Point: The DVD Dilemma


Is it nudity or violence? What tips the scale and motivates a parent to make the “off limits” call?

The daughter is enthralled by the story of the Titanic. Her cousin lent her a book when we were last in Iowa, and when we got home she actually checked a documentary dvd on the disaster out of the library … and watched the whole thing in one sitting.

Okay that last part she gets from me. I love historical documentaries. I once celebrated the Fourth of July holiday by watching Ken Burns’ Civil War* from start to finish.

But Dee’s fascination with Titanic went into overdrive when she discovered there was a movie about it.

Nothing beats history except the Hollywoodization of it.

For a decade plus old film, it is still surprising hard to check out of the library. I had to get in queue, and we waited a month.

And as the credits rolled, I had my reservations.

“People die,” I reminded Dee.

“Yes,” she said, “I know that. The ship sank.”

“This is only sort of make-believe,” I cautioned.

“I know,” she replied in that tone. THAT tone. The one that reminds me that she isn’t feeble-minded and that I am being over-protective.

So I girded myself, and we watched the first half on Friday night.

It’s a horrible movie. Very James Cameron. Cheesy. Trite. Insipid dialogue. Caricatures in place of characters. CGI that wouldn’t pass muster on a Wii.

And the acting? Aside from Kathy Bates, who couldn’t be awful if she tried, it was spectacularly awful. DiCaprio and Winslet give it their all – but the script was hokey and stacked against them from the opening bell.

But even as death loomed, what really made question my parenting skills were the bare breasts.

Yeah, not the liberal use of “fuck” and “shit”, or “shite” depending, but nekkid titties.

We are not particularly modest in our household. I don’t duck for cover when the daughter is about, and Rob and I sleep in the nude.**

Perhaps it was the suggestiveness? Eight is still a bit too young for the “full monty” explanation of sex.

Last night was the infamous “Jack sketches Rose in the nude scene” and by this time, Dee was firmly indoctrinated into the “Jack is an artist, so it’s okay” camp.

But the sex in the car?

Nothing is shown. It’s all suggested and then cut-away to another scene before coming back to find them sweating and undressed (ironically, Winslet’s breasts – so prominent during the “art” scene are strategically covered now.)

“Um,” Dee said, “are they naked?”

“Yes,” I said – steeling myself for a “grown-ups in love sometimes get naked when they kiss” explanation.

“Hmmm,” and her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed and she said no more.

Bullet dodged for another day.

But then came the iceberg. The panic. The rising water. The frantic, and tragically doomed, people scrambling for boats.

After a scene which highlighted a father lying to his young daughters so he could get them onto a life boat with their mother, she asked,

“Can I have a tissue?”

“Should we turn this off now and finish later?”

“Yes,” she agreed. “You and Dad and I would have been on a boat together, wouldn’t have we?”

And of course I didn’t lie to her. It was women and children first and the majority of the men on Titanic who had any balls or integrity went down with the ship.***

She hasn’t asked to watch the end today. She knows Rose lives and that Jack dies. We talked about that in advance. But in the larger scheme, this isn’t make-believe. People really died. Dads really died.

Maybe I should have copped out and told her the movie wasn’t appropriate for kids – and maybe it really isn’t – but she watched the documentary already, and it was far more grim and real.

At eight I was still watching Disney mostly. Was I better off for being sheltered?

I have vetoed films that I know other kids her age have seen already. Pop stuff. Fantastical but dark.

She doesn’t want commercial tv. She is far less exposed to the over-sexed culture and mindless distraction that numbs mind and soul than the majority of her peers.

She knows death first hand, so it’s pointless to pretend it doesn’t exist.

And it’s futile to shield her from the fact that human beings mainly exist to couple. The world revolves around that … and killing each other.

I am betting it will be a while before she asks to finish the movie and when we do, it will not be in the evening before bed.

*I still marvel at how the Civil War became Ken’s. Alien historians a thousand years from now will marvel that one man caused all that destruction a hundred years prior to his own birth.

** Rob, by the way, is covered up and if  Dee were a boy, it would be the opposite situation. For example, I began shooing my nephews out of the room when I dressed when they hit five. Although, I am not so concerned about the over five year old boys whose mothers bring them into the women’s change room at the pool. That’s their problem.

***And yeah, that sounds sexist but seriously? Who would really cheer on the idea of men first in a situation like this?

What Kind of Dining Set Defines Me as a Person?


The unknown narrator, or is he Tyler Durden, ponders an IKEA catalog, wondering what his stuff says about him. But it’s not just stuff, it’s attitude about/identification with things and how what we wear, listen to, read and watch comes to represent us in the world.

Programmed from near birth, we come to view externals as part of ourselves and believe that they lift us or damn us according to society’s ranking of them and hence us.

Our musical tastes, for example, allow the majority to rule us. We are cool or not so much depending on our earworm preferences. Liking Nickelback and Taylor Swift earns scorn while pretending to get the deep meaning of Tool rates high social marks.

I like Nickelback by the way. Just plain old pop/rock and occasional boy band ballad-e-ness with a bit of growl. Pretentious? Perhaps. Lyrically challenged? Most definitely. Fun? In my opinion, yes.

I listen to Tool as well though I prefer Perfect Circle. It’s also pretentious, but it’s angsty in a discomforting way that allows people to pretend it’s more meaningful than Daughtry and therefore elevates the listener to some level the masses just “wouldn’t understand”. Forgetting all the while that music is poetry and poetry’s meaning is subjective and totally relative.

What kind of music defines me as a person?

And what does it say about me that I need external definition?

Yesterday was “cheer up, Keanu day”. Generated by a viral paparazzi shot of the actor morosely munching a sandwich on a park bench in a decidedly homeless guy sort of way, people with a soft spot of maligned movie stars decided to dedicate a day – and a Facebook page – to share their fond memories of his movies, music and their actual encounters with Reeves.

It reminded me of a memorial service.

For a man who’s not dead in case anyone missed that. Although maybe in a world obsessed with whatever one has done lately, a career not in full throttle is akin to a death of sorts. Even middle-aged men are put to pasture in Hollywood, however, but if I had Reeves resources, I doubt that I would be pushing myself very hard either.

Oh, wait. I am not pushing myself. Nevermind

What kind of movies define me as a person?

Can I be defined by the fact that I sometimes watch films just because the actors are pleasantly attractive? Or that I am sufficiently imaginative to be able to immerse myself in a story regardless of the quality of the acting and the CGI?

The latter perhaps is the more admirable quality but the former is nothing to hang one’s head shamefully over.

My fondness for Virgo men aside, I like Reeves the actor. I never have difficulty believing he is his character in a way that “better” actors like Tom Hanks, for instance, can never not be “Tom Hanks” regardless of the film.

Because I prefer to not wear make up, live in my yoga togs and forsake underwear, am I bohemian? Does being a yoga teacher/blogger make me trendy or edgy? Or does the fact that I’ve blogged for money blogs rob me of “cool” cred?

I’ve viewed people from way atop the bridge of my nose, but that vantage point didn’t put me above anyone as much as it revealed my own pettiness and superficiality.

What defines you as a person? Music? Movies? A dining set?

I’m still trying to find my true self. Excavate her, really.

But in the meantime, I like Nickelback and Keanu Reeves’ movies and buying my yoga duds at Sears.

The Thing About “cunt”


When I was in college, we had this game we played to wile away the time in the dishroom between onslaughts of discarded food, paper products and dishware. The rules were simple: out outrage each other by stringing together the most offensively vulgar collection of words or ideas that one could think of with the end goal being rendering opponents speechless through horror or laughter.

Laura was a master. She came up with the term “vaginal blood fart” to describe menstruation.

Yes, we were that immature but fortunately little parental money was being wasted in the pursuit of higher vulgarity as the majority of us were borrowing/working our way through school. There is some peace of mind in that, no?

But the word that none of us used was “cunt”, and it quickly became obvious that it was the stumbling point for everyone. No one could ever utter the word without blushing, stammering, breaking eye contact. Not even Scott and he was the vilest participant – hands down.

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