It wasn’t what he said that got me. It was that he hadn’t noticed before.
Stephen Simon, a movie producer whose credits include What Dreams May Come and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, was horrified recently when he noticed a mother who had brought her young son to a showing of the R-rated End of Watch in Tigard, Ore. As reported by UPI, he said,
It was very violent and very profane from frame one. There were people getting beat up and shot. I thought this is child abuse.
Simon was so upset by the woman’s choice that he confronted her and called Child Protective Services. Says Simon,
The woman [at CPS] told me on the phone I was absolutely right and this was a dreadful thing to do but then said there's nothing we can do and suggested I talk to the manager.
So now Simon is calling theater owners to ask them to have their ticket sellers talk to parents about R-rated films’ content when they try to take young children with them.
I was glad that Simon said something to that mom. And he absolutely should be making a big deal out of it. But he’s not the only one who should. Because this is happening all over the place. Every day. At just about every hard-edged R-rated movie you can think of and even a whole lot of ’em you wouldn’t dare go to yourself.
Every one of us here at Plugged In sees it at just about every screening we attend. Moms with toddlers in tow soaking up American Reunion. Dads with their kids along for an up-close-and-personal look at The Dictator. It happens all the time, for all sorts of reasons … none of them good enough to justify the cost to fragile young minds and hearts.
I still remember the day quite a few years ago when I was slated to review one particular R-rated film. (I can remember the day, but not whether it was South Park or Kill Bill or some other such thing.) I didn’t make the advance screening for it, so I stood in line, waiting to buy a ticket at the theater on opening day. As I inched forward, I overheard two teens behind me debating what they wanted to see. They just couldn’t decide.
I got to the window and, as quietly as I could, told the theater worker what ticket I needed. Then, as I ambled toward my assigned room, I heard these words from those undecided guys behind me: “Um, yeah, we’ll take two tickets for that same film he just bought.”
They didn’t look old enough to be buying those tickets without their parents, but buy them they did. And to this day I hate the idea that somehow my ticket purchase might’ve prompted them to see the same hard-core film I was reviewing.
So how much worse would it be for me to drag along my young daughter just ’cause I had a hankering to see something edgy?
She wouldn’t just be slightly influenced by my decision to buy a ticket, as those two boys might’ve been. She’d be completely swallowed up by my example and the extreme content I’d be setting in front of her.
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