If it's animated, it must be for kids.

[KamenRiderOsaka]

my parents were strict on what I watched, but I could get away with a lot of stuff. My step dad didnt like me watching married with children or beavis & butt-head, or south park. My mom didnt really care, just dont watch it around step-dad.

My dad on the other hand...anything and everything was cool with him. I think I watched Night of the Demons 2 (cheesy skin horror film) like 100 times one summer.

It' sup to parental responsibility to monitor what THEY get for kids. When I worked at Blockbuster, and we refused renting Resident Evil to kids, parents would (in a huff) rent it, and then come back an hour later with a kid crying (cause he got scared or didnt want to return it) and scream at us for "allowing" her to rent it, even though we warned her over and over. One time, a lady rented The Goonies (the most harmless movie EVAR.) She came back an hour later, screaming it was a bad movie cause the kids said "damn and hell!" *eye roll*

[NotSoInnocent]

My 7 year old knows the proper way to kill a zombie. Shaun of the Dead is one of her favorite movies... but people look at me strange when she chases around her "zombie"-soon-to-be-step-dad telling him to quit moving so she can "remove the head or destroy the brains"! She gets to watch stuff like that because we have a simple rule in the family. If I haven't seen it... you aren't going to. This way I KNOW what my kids are watching.

Besides... My kids are taught the difference between tv/movie stuff and Real Life stuff.

It's kind of a mature attitude for a parent to have, I guess... but I take responsibility for what my children are exposed to. ... ... Even if it is zombie movies and gothic styles.


PS... The heathen children look GOOD in goth clothing and makeup. Scary, but still cute. The 16 month old loooooves to wear her daddy's green eyeshadow.

[Lace Neil Singer]

My parents used to be strict with TV and what we could or couldn't watch... however, they also used to make my older brother babysit me and my little brothers, for free. He used to put on an 18 movie for us to keep us from bugging him while he played on his Atari st for hours. We watched The Terminator, Terminator 2, The Exorcist (on pirate video), all the Nightmare On Elm Street movies and quite a few Hammer Horrors; and we were unfazed by it.

For the record, yes it makes me laugh when kids don't know what yaoi is too; I remember on another forum where I admin, this noob came on and her profile said "I love yaoi! Feel free to send me pix". I felt it my duty as an admin to edit her profile and explain to her exactly what yaoi was... never heard another peep from her.

Regarding nudity in anime; to me, as long as it's not either gratituous or with graphic detail, same as violence, I don't mind it. Graphic violence or nudity bugs me, just like it does in films, theatre, TV... or any other medium.

[Gawdzillers]

My parents were good about not letting me see dirty stuff when I was younger.
They wouldn't even let me see Beavis and Butthead.
So when my friend had it on DVD and came over I was so excited, my parents let me watch because they knew I could handle it.
Funniest thing I have ever seen.

I liked Beavis And Butthead Do America.
"Any last words before I kill you?"
"Uhh..yeah. Like....butt cheeks."
"Yeah... and boobs. I wanna say that again. Boobs."

[Tithera]

MTV, South Park, and Horror movies were no-no's when I was younger. Ironically enough, South Park is one of favorite shows, I love and rent daily horror movies(also own quite a few), but i hate MTV with a passion.
My mom actually just got me pans labrynth. Can't wait to watch it. She knows now that no matter what she says, I will see these movies, so better have her know exactly what's in them, then to let me "see'em out on the streets." she even gets me into r-rated movies (saw3, amityville horror and the such), but I'm 16, I've seen worse crap.
Miranda, my movie goddess of Family Video, repeatedly had to tell parents that certain cartoons in the store are not for kids(ex. Family Guy, South Park, Aeon FLux, Final Fantasy, Immortal, Who Framed Rogger Rabbit(slightly animated), Futurama, American Dad, etc)but, they never listen. I was in the store once when I a lady got South Park for her kids and came back not even 15 mins. later and yelled at M for letting her rent it. I was so pissed off, but M kinda gave the look and I backed off. I hate it when people blame the clerks for s**t they do themselves. But, it also makes me want to work at a video store more, so I can see there faces when I put the video on the screens and show them exactly what they are getting(if no other children are around, of course)

[Velfarre2001]

Christ On His Throne.

I hate guro.

Berserk is NOT Guro.

I had my experience when my moms friend brought her 7 year old son over and I had Ninja Scroll on the counter. I was upstairs, she decided he should watch the cartoon.... heh. One guess how THAT turned out.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Years later, I often wished to be a fly on the wall when the mom put that movie in. Wouldn't you just love to have seen the look on her face when she saw what she'd rented junior?

That reminds me of an incident that happened several years ago to a friend w/2 boys (they were around 15 and 8 at the time.)

She'd taken the to the video store to rent some movies and her older son liked anime. He'd picked out one, and they took it home.

Turned out it was a porn movie . . . hentai I think is the proper term . . . so she called me and told me about it.

She was at my house a few minutes later w/the tape - she'd taken it out when she saw what it was and wouldn't let her boys watch it.

We sat through the entire movie and ended up with a good laugh over it.

And my friend learned to always check the descriptions on the box a bit better.

[DesignFox]

Hehe. I always used to laugh about that back when I was more into the anime thing.

While I'm not saying the parents shouldn't read the damn labels (I mean seriously, the cover has a picture of ... let's say something inappropriate that's been censored)...it's pretty damn obvious it's not a kid's movie. But they always put THOSE movies right next to the "Family" section...I never understood that logic in store layout....

Maybe they changed it in recent years now that anime is more popular...

[Knifeman]

If someone is mentally adjusted enough, I think they should be given the freedom to choose what to read or watch, but of course I also think that parents do have the right to control what goes on inside their house, and should pay closer heed to what they get their children to watch.

As for the sex vs violence issue, this reminds me of something that's happened recently with me.

I used to regularly read a webcomic(name withheld) which was about an assasin that has long drawn out gun battles with hyper violent results.

It was gritty, dark, but extremely well drawn(one of the few webcomics where guns are properly drawn). However, recently, one of their latest pages involves a rather convoluted backstory where it flashes back to an orphanage where girls are raised to become assasins and are raped (graphically on the page, not just implied, not even a silhoette, it was just there, front page) to become emotionless.

I'm not a reader of that comic anymore because of that page. There's a fundamental difference between hyper violent fantasy gun battles and graphic rape, and while one is suitable to read by nearly everyone that's a teen and up, the other certainly isn't.

*steps off the soap box*.

[Imogene]

the the second: if yo uthink that is funny, imagine 13 year old girls screamig their heads off about yaoi when all they mean is men making out.

I have a story related to that. From Chesterfield, surprise surprise.
I was busy sorting the action movies one day, sitting on the rolling chair, as I was in the later parts of the alphabet, and thus, in the movies right near the floor. I had a straight line of sight through the shelves to the adult movies.
I suddenly hear, from a pair of girls walking into the store: "*gasp!* They have hentai!" followed shortly by: "*gasp!* They have Yaoi!"
I looked through the shelves at these two girls, and say, "How old are you girls?"
They look around quickly, more than a little confused by the lack of a source for my voice, as I was well hidden by the shelves. And then I stood up, towering over the shelves, and repeated myself.
One of them quietly answered, "Thirteen."
I jerked my thumb at the store's entrance. "Out." (Door's to MY left...)

[ForestDragon]

Even when I was 12 or 13, when video rentals first started I had a friend whose parents would let him watch videos such as Dawn of the Dead and the Exorcist (before it was banned as a video nasty).

So letting kids watch inappropriate stuff isn't exactly new.

Of course, there's a lot of weird definitions of what's appropriate and what's not. When I was a kid I watched all the Warner Brothers cartoons (Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, et al.) after school and on the weekends. Perfectly acceptable when I was a kid thirty-plus years ago, and suddenly kids' minds are too fragile to see them now. WTF, over? About a third of the catalogue is no longer shown on TV and a lot of the remainder has been gutted . Now I wanna buy the old cartoons on DVD so I don't have to put up with my old favorites being "sanitized for my protection." I almost wish I had a nephew or niece so I could corrupt them...


HILLBILLY HARE SQUAREDANCE LYRICS

Promenade across the floor
Sashay right on out the door
Out the door and into the glade
And everybody promenade!

Step right up, you're doing fine
I'll pull your beard, you pull mine
Yank it again, like you did before
Break it up with a tug of war!

Now into the brook and fish for the trout
Dive right in and splash about
Trout, trout, pretty little trout
One more splash and come right out!

Shake like a hound dog, shake again
Wallow around in the old pig pen
Wallow some more, you all know how
Roll around like an old fat sow

Allemande left with your left hand
Follow through with a right 'n' left grand
Now lead your partner, the dirty ol' thing
Follow through with an elbow swing

Grab a fence post, hold it tight
Whomp your partner with all your might
Hit him in the shin, hit him in the head
Hit him again, the critter ain't dead!

Whomp him low and whomp him high
Stick your finger in his eye
Pretty little rhythm, pretty little sound
Bang your heads against the ground!

Promenade all around the room
Promenade like a bride and groom
Open up the door and step right in
Close the door and into a spin -

Whirl, whirl, twist and twirl
Jump around like a flying squirrel
Now don't you cuss and don't you swear
Come right out and form a square!

Now right hand over and left hand under
Both join hands and run like thunder!
Over hill and over dale
Duck your head and lift your tail!

Don't you stray and don't you roam
Turn around and promenade home
Corn in the corncrib, wheat in the sack
Turn your partner, promenade back.

And now you're home
Bow to your partner
Bow to the gent across the hall...
And that is all!


Out of curiosity, Cinema Guy, what exactly constitutes a 'video nasty?' (I have a feeling I own a lot of them...Robocop, Re-Animator, Night of the Living Dead, Exorcist, A Clockwork Orange, etc.) Does banning these movies where you are mean they're completely unavailable (except for discreet online purchases), or are available only from the back rooms in your video stores (like renting pornos)? And would the unrated version of the Spawn animated movies count as such? There's a lot of graphic violence in those - some sex, but no worse than in many R-rated movies. Due to the pretty-gross violence, I would never show Spawn to kids - unless they're already making a habit of watching movies like those I listed above.

[siead_lietrathua]

video nasties is in europe where they try(ed) to ban violent films. apperantly it was so lax on what constituted a nasty that things were being taken from homeowners and stores based on the title more than the content.
i know pretty much anything fulci (or italian in general) was banned, cannibal movies, evil dead and etc. the best story i heard was of a guy who put a 1hour documentury of mudskippers the beginning of a nasty to get it through customs.

here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_nasty

[ForestDragon]

Went through the list of nasties - nope, don't own any of those. Probably just as well.

What I don't understand is why these idiots complaining about the "OMG! Nasty cartoons!" don't stay in the kiddie ghetto in the video store, read the boxes for the rating/story description or pay attention to the clerk (or whoever) who points out that that particular bright-colored DVD really isn't something he or she would want little Johnny or Becky to see. At least listen to the clerks! Chances are good they know what they're talking about! Morons.

[greensinestro]

Like, wow! I'm a parent, and anything I rent or buy for the kids is looked at and screened by myself and the wife. If there is any disclaimer about the letter "X", the word "nudity", or "sexual content", it does not go home with me.

I'll bet this lady does that often with her child. To her, he's a brat and getting in her way, so she sticks him in front of the TV, then she herself goes off to watch soap operas or take a long nap.

[Velfarre2001]

Wow, such memories. ForestDragon. Thanks. Made me look for this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3YiygC7lp0