“That’s the most violent thing I’ve ever seen!”
My father was not impressed with the ending of Willow (1988), my pick for movie night with the kids. Up until the finale, the movie had been enjoyable enough, although it’s not a very good movie.
“I thought we might be watching My Fair Lady (1964) or The King and I (1956). You know, classic family entertainment.”
Hadn’t he and my mother watched The Wire? I thought, although I didn’t say so. Nor did I remind him of some of the movies he’d taken me to as a kid of around ten years old: Blade Runner (1982), Excalibur (1981), and The Beastmaster (1982). Those three films had a big effect on me. They’re all violent, but of the three it’d be hard to top the carnage and mayhem of Excalibur. I remember an image from a Mad magazine parody of that movie that featured two men goring each other, and squiggly intestines dangling off the ends of the javelins.
The finale of Willow also features a dramatic impaling, when the character Madmartigan, played by Val Kilmer, hoists his arch enemy onto a large protruding spike. With an emphatic push by Madmartigan, complete with sound effect, the enemy’s torso slides down and the spike protrudes through his backside, to let us know he’s finished.
“Ugghhh!” we collectively gasped and looked away. My younger son buried his face into my shoulder, horrified.
But isn’t that the intended effect? The horror, the recoiling, the gasps, the hiding of eyes, the little thrills of dramatic, violent finales. I doubt either of my kids will soon forget seeing that movie, just like that trifecta from the early eighties sticks with me. In the moment, though, I felt badly about showing everyone that. What was I thinking? I should have shown My Fair Lady.
“I think you just have to look at the production value,” my mother offered. “I’ve never seen anything like that. It was quite well made.”
She was being truthful. She had enjoyed it, as we all had at times. My father had commented on the physical comedic acting of Kilmer, that it reminded him of the acting of Toshiro Mifune in Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954), yet another movie he took me to see as a kid. You may be wondering, Did we ever go to see age-appropriate movies? The answer is no. My mother and my grandmother took me to some of those, but with me and dad, it was always adult fare. Only years later did I realize that those movies weren’t for kids. Those experiences were among my most formative and left an indelible mark. Would they have been the same if we’d been seeing the latest Disney movie instead? It’s hard to believe they would have. The shocking content had something to do with the strong impression.
Such was the life with a father who could recall the names of actors from Kurosawa films, decades after seeing them. He may have seen Seven Samurai as a kid himself. I’m not sure. But that movie provided an invaluable touchstone for us, as he showed me how the plot got recycled in other films over the years, such as in The Magnificent Seven (1960), and in another one we saw together in the theater, Battle Beyond the Stars (1980).
One thing for certain, though, is that I would never show my kids anything like those movies. I’ve gone out of my way to avoid screening violent or profanity-laced content for them, to the point that now they’ve likely encountered much more violent and profane content on their own.
“They’ve watched all the Harry Potter movies, haven’t they?” my partner had pointed out while I was debating what to show. She had liked Willow when she was younger, but even she had forgotten about some of the plot points, such as that the entire thing revolves around a baby that an evil queen wants to sacrifice, and nearly does, or that part of her attempt to do so involves using her magic to turn everyone into pigs. That scene reminded me of the donkey scene from Pinocchio (1940) which also terrified me as a kid.
My kids’ ages and my preferences in movies have led to some difficulty in picking what to screen. So much of what I’d like to show, what made an impact on me, I know is inappropriate. The rest of it, I just don’t remember the awful parts, until I see them again. I knew they were into fantasy, so I was attempting to meet them where they are. But the truth was that I never really liked fantasy movies that much. I couldn’t really remember the difference between Willow and Legend (1985) or even Labyrinth (1986).
There I was outside of my wheelhouse trying to pick a movie. I often turn to the website Common Sense Media, which rates and reviews movies with kids in mind, for help in these situations. Their review of Willow noted that there are sword battles and killing, but that there is no blood, which in hindsight was a key selling point for me. I thought of the killing in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), another formative film that I’ve written about before. The sword and arrow deaths in that movie are quick and bloodless. Prince John’s men get stabbed or shot, and fall. That’s it. No “gore” to speak of, yet the battle scenes are riveting.
That was what I had in mind with my pick, and in fact, some of the battle scenes in Willow are strikingly similar to scenes from Robin Hood, particularly one that takes place on castle steps. I mentioned this to my father while we were watching, and he acknowledged the similarity. That was when things were still going pretty good, though, before the evil queen got ready to stab a baby on an altar.
Of course we all know that there are multiple ways to be disturbed by a film, and thus various ways to gauge what content is appropriate for kids and what isn’t. There’s a kind of hierarchy: Fights and battles in which people are shot, stabbed, and killed. Then there are jump scares, killers hunting for victims, the thrills of hiding, running, being chased. Then there’s extreme gore, blood splattering, guts spilling, headshots with high-powered guns and the subsequent images of exploded skulls. Then there’s torture, violence against a restrained or confined victim. Then there’s kids being tortured or killed, or potentially killed, in any of the above-mentioned ways. Then there’s babies getting that treatment, such as in Willow. Then there’s dystopian plots in which teenagers are compelled to hunt each other to the death, with no way out. Then, at the far end, for my kids at least, there’s any scene in which an animal is harmed, mistreated, or potentially has as much as one hair, feather, scale, or antenna disturbed.
My kids would rather watch the second episode of Breaking Bad, where a half-dissolved torso crashes through a ceiling and splats onto the floor, a hundred times before having to watch one minute of John Turturro going to town on those penguins in Five Corners (1987), while Jodi Foster looks on in horror. Admittedly, that one is truly one of the most disturbing scenes I’ve ever seen depicted on film, but that Breaking Bad stuff is no picnic, either. I find myself covering my eyes much more often these days. As the extremity and frequency of violence in our entertainment has increased, my tolerance level for it has gone the other way.
My point is, it’s not cut and dry what’s appropriate and what isn’t, since what’s disturbing and what isn’t shifts and changes even within ourselves over time. What’s true is that being horrified is an essential part of watching and loving movies, and while I’ll continue to veto The Hunger Games (2012) for a nine-year-old, I also know that dark thrills and glimpses behind the curtain of our twisted psyches are part of the experience.
“It wasn’t that bad,” the older kid said after it was over, as my parents were making their exit and I was apologizing for the pick. “You’re more freaked out about it than anyone.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s fine, no biggie. I think I meant to pick Labyrinth. That’s the one with the Muppets, right? Maybe I’ll run it back with that next time.”
“No! You don’t get a do-over for that pick, dad,” the older informed me.
“Fine,” I said. “But just wait. I got something even better for you next time. Just you wait and see.”
XulaDad 
A fine one!
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