I read Janet McMonagle’s post “Brokeback Media”, which I thought was very interesting. The headmaster of the Christian school where Michelle Willams once attended was asked if his school was acknowledging Williams’s Oscar nomination for Brokeback Mountain, and his comments about the film promoting a lifestyle that the school opposes have caused some controversy.
I won’t repeat Janet’s post. What interests me is the fact that the headmaster’s comments have probably spurred more interest among the students in seeing the film than had these comments not been made. That’s part of human nature I suppose. You tell a teenager not to do something, and you’re asking for it. One of my favorite former students grew up in a house where she was forbidden to watch television; now she teaches media production at a local high school.
The question is, how do you maintain a relationship with your children so that as they grow you can still have a sense of what kind of media they are consuming? There’s a reason why films are rated R. Those under seventeen should go see such films with an adult they trust. Now, what was R when I was a kid would probably be PG-13 or even PG today, but the point is still there. Of course, it’s always a big thrill when you know you’re not old enough to do something and you do it anyway, like smoking or drinking, and I remember those days. I saw quite a few R films without any adult supervision, and I mentioned Blake Edwards’ 10 in my post.
10 is a very funny satiric film about a man’s midlife crisis, but to an adolescent going through those usual hormonal changes, all one remembers is Bo Derek running on the beach, and the pleasure such titillation gave. And that can become a dominant image of “Woman”: the object of sexual desire. Edwards is making fun of this to some degree, but most of us who saw that film did not take it as such – or at least, such satire of the Dudley Moore character was secondary in memory.
What would have happened had I seen that with my older brother, who was in college already when the film came out? I don’t know, but I do suspect I’d care more about the wit than the… well, this is a family blog, never mind My point is that in simply laying down this basic rule and forbidding youth to see something and obsessively talk about it, you’re just going to encourage more interest. And when the kids do go see Brokeback – which I’d probably they rather see than 10 — they will come away with some confusion and perhaps misinformation. Or, maybe they’ll be more open-minded and tolerant, seeing these two men as human beings deserving of sympathy and compassion. Either way, we as adults have to talk with them about it, once they are aware of what’s going on.
It does not matter what kinds of films offend you: films which show homosexuals as human beings; films that are homophobic; films that show too much violence; films that stereotype ethnic minorities; films that criticize (or satirize) the President and the Presidency; films with bad music. I don’t care. You can keep them from coming into your home, but you have to be aware that they exist, and your children will learn about them. I’d much rather we sit around and talk about the issues not only raised by “difficult” films but also discuss the way that such films represent the issues; we always talk in our house about how the people who make films and TV shows made them, how and why they work.
If you don’t want movies to be your children’s only source of information about serious and complex topics, then you have to make a contribution to the information they receive.