Movies/TV I Was Too Young For

As a child, no media was off limits (aside from the obvious x rated stuff). My parents never shielded me from any movie, TV show, music, etc. And I know a lot of people who probably think that is bad parenting and maybe for some children it could be. But for me it was a truly positive thing. Some of these movies and TV shows would be deemed as unfit for children but I was allowed to watch pretty much anything. And I'm going to point out all the ways those works are beneficial to growing minds.

1) The basketball diaries

Now, mind you when I watched this, I wasn't a literal toddler or anything. I was around eleven when I first saw it. Of course, neither of my parents, nor my sister and I, even knew what it was about. We just knew Leo DiCaprio was in it and it had something to do with basketball... ahem... anyway, my sister and I watched it alone. I honestly would not recommend you make your children watch this at the ages we were, or perhaps maybe you should depending on their maturity level. (there is some BAD stuff in there). But I actually got to see a very gross reality that most children aren't exposed to... (or you could show them "cartoon allstars to the rescue" it basically has the same moral lesson... seriously check it out, even if you are now an adult, it's crazy and probably more traumatizing than basketball diaries to be honest) But with Basketball Diaries I really wasn't traumatized by anything I saw, it was slightly horrific but I knew that what was causing the horror was drugs. And one one hand most of the things kids see these days glamorizes drugs. OR on the other hand if you are really strict, all they know is the names of drugs. Not to say I don't love the D.A.R.E. program, but sometimes we take being "kid friendly" too far and they don't actually see anything that shows them the real damage that can be done. And this movie was the exact opposite of glamorizing drugs, and basketball... and Leo himself. Some movies about drugs could be a bad influence, but the only influence I got from this movie was that I did NOT want to end up like those boys. But also that they were just normal teenage boys, and real people who made some wrong choices, and how far those bad choices could take them down the wrong path... bad for kids? does that sound like a bad lesson to learn?

2) Dazed and Confused (and many in the same genre)

As a young teen, instead of wanting to watch things for young teens, I liked to watch things that older teens and adults would watch. (it wasn't until I was in my mid-twenties that I starting watching things for actual teens, and then cartoons for kids, I literally went backwards) Dazed and Confused and other "pothead" movies really made me not as interested in doing the things they were doing. It no longer was a "big deal" to get high or go to parties. Plus I'm pretty anti-social, so why would I put in a lot of effort to go hang out with people and act awkward and embarrass myself completely, when I could just watch that happen to fictional people in movies and laugh at them for it? Plus I actually learned some life lessons from Randall "pink" Floyd and characters like him, about friendship, not letting "the man" control you, and all those other basic hippie life lessons that I love to this day.

3) Jurassic Park

This movie was big for me, I watched it so much that I could recite every line of dialog. This is a two part, I'll keep the obvious lessons we all know brief. Science can be good, but in greedy, careless hands, it can be disastrous. Raptors are awesome. And a T-Rex (sort of) saved everyone in the end. We all know Malcolm's lessons throughout the movie and he's pretty accurate. Greedy scientists or greedy people who hire them, or people who steal embryos are bad... Animals are great, even when they eat people because they don't know any better. But as I was thinking about this I realized something else, now people have complained about "Jurassic world" for it's depiction of women, specifically Claire, I can't say whether I agree or disagree because all I could think about during that movie was "Chris Pratt is raptor mom" and "protect the raptor babies at all costs"... but the point is Claire is a career woman who learns to care for nephews and blah, blah, anti-feminist blah. Don't like that personally but we will see what happens in the next one, because as we all know in the beginning of the original, Dr. Grant can not stand children. Ellie wants to have kids, he doesn't. And when a smart mouth brat insults raptors, Grant scares him half to death with the literal truth about how a raptor could kill him. That sounds pretty cruel but that kid was a brat and he had it coming. We know that Grant isn't really that level of mean to all kids though because later when he meets Lex and Tim, he is annoyed but he doesn't make them pee themselves like he did with the first one. (it's possible that first boy is who turned him against kids to begin with lol) Anyway, Lex and Tim aren't like that boy, they are good and nice kids, and Grant isn't even close to cruel to them, he just tries to avoid being around them (to be honest they were kind of annoying) but he's polite. And here's the kicker, when everyone loses their butts, so to speak, and the kids are in very serious danger, who is the very first person to literally risk his own life to save them? Well it's Dr. Alan Grant! The lawyer runs off to hide, Ian did a stupid thing with a flare trying to be a hero after Alan did it, but that was dumb and he did it wrong. Grant didn't even think about it, he just sprung into action, he didn't just set there like "well I never liked kids anyway so I must be a terrible person who couldn't care less if they live or die" (the thing most people think we who are childless must be like). Well look at that, the guy who doesn't want to have kids is the first one to risk his life for kids... he cares for them throughout the movie and generally gets to know them, and even starts to like them. At the end we see he is holding them one on each side as they sleep and Ellie smiles at this. BUT the joke is on her, he still doesn't want to have kids! Yep, we find out in Jurassic Park III (pretend those are claw slashes) that Grant and Ellie are no longer together (which I was disappointed by until I realized this reason and lesson wrapped in that reason) Grant bonded with Lex and Tim, as individuals, not just because they were kids, but I would say he even started to like kids more because in three he is playing with Ellie's kid (who kind of saves his life near the end of the movie). So neither party changed their minds about wanting to, or not wanting to have kids. And that's okay for both of them. This is so realistic, they didn't end up together, both got what they wanted and were still friends. Grant even decided to start liking kids to the point where he visited Ellie and played with her kid for fun, but he still didn't want to have his own. Let this be a lesson to all you who say the childfree will "change their minds when they mature" or thinking we are mean for not wanting them. Or thinking we are mean to all kids just because we don't want any or if we don't enjoy their company. We might just surprise you by saving them from a T-Rex one day. But we still won't want to have any.

4) Seinfeld

I learned so much about people in general from this show. From 'shrinkage' to paying attention to where you park in a parking garage. But most of all Elaine, she was treated basically exactly the same as the men in this show for the most part. She's a wonderful example of feminism at it's finest. And I don't remember not being allowed to watch this show or any "adult" sitcoms. Even as a small child. Their conversations were just regular adult conversations, it wasn't pandering to children, or speaking in a manner that felt demeaning to a younger audience like so many shows geared toward kids tend to do. The dialog was intelligent and I learned bigger words and I didn't really need them to speak slowly for me to know what they were saying. I didn't need to hear soft music in the background to know it was a tender moment. I learned how to read people and subtext, because whether the adults around me in real life were aware or not, I was paying attention to the show and the show wasn't treating me like a stupid kid. Not that the writers of the show knew I was watching either. But that's how I learned things that most kids my age didn't know anything about. Along with the other things on this list.

5) Halloween

This one is a little tricky. I remember watching this when I was super young. It was supposed to be scary even for adults. I suppose it was to me in the same way that it is now. But it wasn't extra scary because I was a kid. It was less scary to me than Fantasia, and to be perfectly honest that big monster thing still freaks me out. And I still don't understand any of the plot of that movie whatsoever. Plus other cartoons for kids freaked me out like, ferngully, that smog is creepy. But at least that movie had a good underlying message about pollution. And sleeping beauty... pretty scary. Anyway what I learned subconsciously from halloween was that anyone can be psycho. That doesn't sound great but hear me out. We have all these people defending pedophiles and rapists, serial killers, etc. because "they are my family". Or "I've known them all my life" Of course, Micheal Myers started at a very young age, but what is that movie about besides murder? what is literally the only other theme? Family! Michael's only goal was to kill people in his family. I don't remember why exactly but that was his whole goal. So it doesn't matter if it's the boy next door or your own brother, it's not okay to condone or excuse bad behavior. (I'm all for forgiveness and unconditional love) BUT that's not the same as condoning or excusing. Every serial killer ever, had a mother and possibly siblings and neighbors. It doesn't matter if they are nice to you, they can pretend. Another thing was the humanity, I remember the fifth one (pretty sure, there are like 200) and Jamie (the character not actress) was Michael's niece and she was a child who hadn't talked in a year, she started to, eventually in this movie and at one point she is about to be his victim and she says "uncle Micheal" and there is a tender moment. I actually cried. Of course I would call this a Clarice moment (like in Hannibal) where I'd want to stop him at all costs, but I still realize there is a human in there. (side note: would totally put those movies in but didn't watch them until I was older not because I wasn't allowed just didn't know what I was missing) Anyway I've done this a lot of times when the villain was an actual human and not just a ghost or force or whatever. And I think that's also important, not because we should let them do the things they are doing or that they shouldn't be locked up or etc. But because that's the thing that makes us different than them. If you are heartless to someone that's being or has been heartless, what makes you better than them? And some of the time like in Micheal's case, he was crazy with a capital C, and not 100% heartless, he was just crazy. Should someone like that be locked up forever? Well yes because in his case, he was never going to get better, or I'll even go as far as saying he might need to be killed to keep him from hurting others. But that doesn't mean we can't on some level feel bad for him or people like him.

6) Crybaby

I loved- no, I love this movie. It's so cheesy but it is also so cute, and fun and it has Johnny Depp. Although I do have mixed feelings about him personally at this point and time. I still love his work and his acting skills. (I am unsure about things that have been said about him, but I always believe the victim first so for right now, no comment on that) Anyway, this movie is something I watched at a very young age and I still enjoy it to this day. Now as for what I learned from this movie, well I think that is pretty obvious to anyone who has seen the movie. The people on the wrong side of the tracks, Crybaby Walker and his family, the Walkers, are the rebels, they even say "we're bad, real bad" but actually I don't see much crime in this movie, unless you count the boys who lit a new motorcycle that wasn't theirs on fire and rolled it down a hill toward a crowd of people who are minding their own business. But wait that was the "good and upstanding" boys who did that. This movie is so realistic in that way, the people who try to act all great in front of society are the first ones that not only commit actual crimes, but usually don't care about hurting other people. While those boys do not care about Alison's agency or feelings, the Walker's take her in as one of their own almost instantly, even though she's nothing like them. I also love that although the real bad guys are the "fancy people" not all of the fancy people are bad, for example, Alison's grandmother lets her go spend time with Crybaby and then later, her and the judge end up joining in with crybaby's family and help him and his friends get out of jail.

7) E.T. (the extra terrestrial)

I was thinking about this movie recently, and it's the main one that prompted me to write this entire entry. I watched it for the first time at around age 3… I LOVED it, I had 2 ET toys, one about my size and a small one. I “married” the large one, and the small toy was our baby. I loved him and recently I was trying to understand it, I certainly wasn’t attracted to him, I wasn’t even aware of attraction at that age, I just loved him (so I thought) now I realize that the love I felt wasn’t like romantic at all, it was empathy. Every part of that movie is about having empathy, even Elliot learns empathy from ET, I mean he literally can feel what ET feels, and ET is very empathetic himself as he’s watching TV he feels bad for the characters on there, I don’t know if it’s just me or what but I think being so obsessed with this movie helped me be a better person. I don't know if every single kid could watch this movie and feel the way I did and understand it. I remember crying about ET and feeling bad for him. And I was thinking about this and then I decided to go see if anyone realized that the whole point of the movie is empathy and I found a website that basically says exactly that. And of course the movie furthers mistrust of government and that's always a good lesson to learn. Another thing is at even at 3 years old, I wasn't scared of ET's appearance. Basically he looks like a little monster, but I either wasn't old enough to realize it or just didn't care, this also could help children and adults alike be more accepting of people who don't look like them. ET didn't look like anyone or anything I'd ever seen, not even other aliens. Because the common "look" for alien is "little green man with egg shaped head and big eyes" but for some reason it never registered to me that ET was like an alien like the ones in other movies, he was ET, I knew him for his personality and was never once scared of him. So do your child a favor and let them watch this movie. Empathy is one thing the world needs desperately right now.