Anonyvox

Junior Vox and I have been spending a lot of time with the Roku over the holidays, finding new movies for her to watch on Amazon Prime. So much of it is trial and error, and I have found that the movies I remember from my childhood frequently are not even remotely appropriate for her to watch.

“Goonies” is a great case in point. I remember a bunch of wise-cracking kids following a treasure map and finding pirate gold. What I didn’t remember was a ton of eleven year olds swearing their little faces off, and a copy of Michelangelo’s “David” getting its junk broken off and glued back on upside down. That much swearing in today’s movies would definitely result in a PG-13 rating, but that wasn’t an option back in My Day. Why, we went straight from PG to R! (Pass me the liniment; my rheumatism is flaring up.) I’m frankly surprised my mother let us watch most movies after the first five minutes. On the other hand, those folks weren’t introducing us to any vocabulary you didn’t hear my dad use at a junior varsity basketball game, so maybe it’s all about perspective.

I went to Wikipedia to find out how the PG-13 rating came into existence, and it turns out that Steven Spielberg petitioned the Motion Picture Industry of America for the additional designation. I think that was a damned fine idea. I can be pretty confident that we’re going to have a perfectly kid-friendly movie with a PG rating these days, and that we’re going to want to avoid PG-13 until she’s older.

Are there movies from when you were growing up that you thought were pretty okay, and have viewed through an entirely different lens now that you’re an adult/parent?