Dealing With the Evil Business in Children’s Movies

HOLLYWOOD, I love you. But why is it that you seem bound and determined to make my little one come face to face with death and evil? It seems that every children’s movie with any reputation for quality either kills the mommy in the first few minutes or features an orphaned child who is beaten or otherwise trod upon.

For Easter, my 3-year-old received the movie, “The Velveteen Rabbit.” Reveling in our first lazy Sunday in about a decade, we decided to pop the new “bunny movie” in during rest hour. Enter sad, mother-grieving boy who is being rejected by his father. Boy goes to live with his mean grandmother and seeks comfort in an imaginary world populated by the dusty old toys – most notably a stuffed rabbit – he finds in the attic.

Before the movie is over, the boy almost dies of scarlet fever and the rabbit, who we’ve all gotten to know and love, is burned with the bedding in order to rid the house of the deadly germs. There is a happy ending, actually. If, that is, you’re not crying too hard to pay attention. But in general, while a beautiful story about love and belief, it’s really a pretty sad story for most of the way.

Needless to say, I had to go get a box of tissues for everyone in the room to share. And my daughter, who watched intently with periodic episodes of sniffling, was perplexed by the fact that the bunny was about to go up in flames (SPOILER ALERT: he doesn’t). Afterwards, she asked over and over about the dead mommy. Thank you, Easter Bunny.

Now, I know this is the way it is. Just about every traditional child’s story depicts a traumatic event. Jack and Jill sustain head injuries, the rock-a-by baby falls from a tree, Hansel and Gretel are abandoned in the woods by their parents and then fattened for eating by a witch. The three little pigs get stalked (and in many versions, eaten) by a big bad wolf, Cinderella is abused by her stepfamily after her parents’ death and Simba, the soon-to-be lion king, is framed for his own father’s murder.

Even the heart-warming movie, Up, introduces life’s tragedies in a poignant montage of the cartoon character’s life. It was while watching Up a few weeks ago that my daughter’s deeper understanding of death began. During previous viewings of the movie, the meaning of the loss was, well, lost on her. But this last time, as I watched her staring intently at the screen, I knew she was paying attention. She watched the movie with no comment. But on the ride home, she asked, “Mommy, what happened to the man’s wife? Why didn’t she come home from the hospital?”

I cringed. I knew this conversation was coming, but did it need to be so soon? “She was sick and her body died, honey. She went to live in heaven.” 

“Are you going to die, too?” 

At three and a half, her beautiful, magical, permanent, simple view of life… shattered forever.

IT WAS bound to happen at some point. And clearly, it was not going to come from me for quite a while if I could help it. Perhaps, historically, that is why the nursery rhymes and fairy tales are riddled with tragedy. They teach about life in a way that a parent might rather not. “Be careful walking on that wall. You know what happened to Humpty Dumpty. He fell and they couldn’t fix him up again.”

But in such a stressful world, do our little ones really need to be surrounded by death and meanness at such an early age? Now, of course, I could do a more thorough job of censoring the books and movies that my children watch. My job is to parent, after all.

But should I? Preschoolers are supposed to know fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Should we put Snow White on the shelf and hide Beauty and Beast for a while? Even if half the things she owns have Snow White and Belle on them? Clearly, she’s part of the target audience for the marketers, at least…

One friend and mom to twin 3-year-olds had a similar experience with Finding Nemo. “It was terrifying,” she recalled. “The mom fish is eaten within the first 10 minutes, and that was just the beginning of the horror. Death, kidnapping, shark attack, painful dentistry - we turned it off at that point, which was maybe 20 minutes in. My little one started crying and her heart was positively racing. That was maybe a month ago? She has talked quite a bit about how she hates sharks ever since. They're three-and-a-half and I'm thinking that movie won't be making another appearance in our house for years.”

What is a mom to do?

In our house, the can of worms has been opened. I think for now, we’ll try to move that can onto the shelf for a little while longer. But the ideas are already rattling around in my little one's brain and we’ll talk about it if and when she wants to bring those issues up. As for future books and movies, I think we’ll make decisions about what she can watch on a case by case basis. I want her to know the classic stories, but as we move into the world of feature-length movies, we’ll have to seek out the kinder, gentler classics like Mary Poppins and The Curious George Movie.

There will always be time for death and evil later.