Movie for Kids?

What exactly does PG-13 mean and does it really mean anything to most parents? We went to see The Dark Knight tonight and there were several small children in the theatre. It really isn't a movie small children should see. It is dark (well, duh!), exceedingly violent and intense. People die in gruesome ways. Small children are put in great peril. Good guys become corrupt or appear corrupt. I was at turns frightened and confused. Imagine how a child under the age of about 13 might feel.

Young children with developing brains are unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality. To a four year old, Batman is as real as Cinderella who is as real as the President of the United States. They are not abstract thinkers and are unable to use concepts so as to make and understand generalizations (such as anything I see on a movie screen isn't real). In other words, youngsters don't see violence and know that a filmmaker paid actors to act. They see a woman being blown up and they believe a woman was blown up. These are images a small child is unable to adequately understand.

If you have an older child this might be a good movie to watch and discuss with them. Concepts such as good vs. evil; the appearance of evil vs. the substance of evil; doing the right thing even though it is the hard thing; self-sacrifice; and with the price of gasoline these days how on earth did the Joker manage to gather hundreds of barrels of diesel fuel to blow up all the stuff he blew up. Obviously, another topic of conversation with older children is the sad and wasteful death of Heath Ledger who played the Joker. Honestly, you can never have too many conversations about the dangers of mixing drugs and alcohol.

It is the job of a parent to protect their child and not enough people do that. There are some good websites out there for parents to check out movies before they take their children. I like www.kids-in-mind.com or www.parentpreviews.com Both of these sites are unemotional and straightforward in their approach without too many spoilers to get in the way.

So, did we like the movie? There were several plot holes that bugged but Heath Ledger was amazing (spotlighting his sad, sad death). I was upset a major character died, happy he didn't and upset again when another major character really did die. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine were perfect. All in all I guess I would say that I did like the movie but I would have liked it better if I hadn't been distracted by wondering how the children in the theatre were faring.

Kathy