"Beth Gallagher" wrote:

"Louise" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 7 Jun 2004 22:12:13 EDT, "Beth Gallagher" wrote:

I cannot imagine fast-forwarding through any part of Wizard of Oz, by the
way. Isn't having nightmares about the witch an essential part of growing
up?! (only half tongue-in-cheek). My general feeling is that if a kid can't

I had nightmares for about a week after I read "Gone With the WInd"
when I was about 15 years old. There are a whole bunch of things
(including some that my grandchildren watch quite happily and
unscared) which I can't stand to watch.

handle essential parts of a movie, such as the Dorothy-kidnapped scene in
Wizard of Oz, he should wait and see the movie when he's ready.
Fast-forwarding through parts of a great movie like Wizard of Oz is like
reading the "Illustrated Classics" version of Jungle Book. What's the rush?
If you can just hold off for another year or two, he'll be able to see the
unadulterated thing the first time around, and that experience cannot be
beat.

That's not necessarily so. Some of us just don't like that kind of
stuff. Actually I liked it less and less as I got older. My mom took
me to see Bambi and Fantasea when I was little and they gave me
nightmares.

I still hide my eyes and/or plug my ears in parts of movies, and I
flip through overly gross or violent parts of books. By your
reasoning, I shouldn't see/read them at all because I can't tolerate
the violent or suspenseful parts.

Is the violence or suspense "an essential part" (as I said above) of the
book or movie? If so, then, yeh, by my reasoning, you might as well not even
do that book/movie.

Why? I loved all the Oz books - I could/can read them over and over.
The movie wasn't really anything like the book - for some reason the
book is not scarey for me. I like the movie, but sometimes I skip or
leave the room for some parts even though I know by now how it comes
out.

I think it's good to give kids
lots of tools for dealing with entertainment that turns out to be too
intense for them, and reminding them that they can fast-forward video
is one of those tools.

I have told my DD, who get very upset very easily, "don't look!" at parts of
movies that I knew would contain a nasty image. I'd also have been willing
to FF through those parts if others hadn;t been watching who wanted to see
those parts. But I generally didn't consider them essential parts of the
movie in question. They were, say, one gruesome image or one especially
realistic violent moment in an otherwise acceptable movie. Now, since this
easily upset DD is the younger sibling of an older child who is really
chomping at the bit to move on to movies at "the next level," I have on
occasion let her be present while he and my DH and I watched slightly
inappropriate movies that required us to cover her eyes during essential or
large parts of the movie (Pirates of the Caribbean comes to mind). But I
think that's a dumb thing to do! ; ) And I wouldn;'t do it for an oldest
child, because it's just not necessary. They can wait.

Suppose they have to wait forever?

On the other hand, as a parent or a non-parental supervisor, I don't
think I would choose to show a movie to kids that I wanted to prevent
them from seeing parts of. It seems unnecessarily intrusive or
something, for me to choose or approve the movie, yet insist on
holding the remote and skipping bits. Our kids complained and sneered
when rainy-day entertainment at their sports camp once included a
drama video about their sport, with the counsellors fast-forwarding or
distracting them during the sex scene. They thought that the
counsellors should have edited the video ahead of time or not shown it
for younger kids and for teens should just have let the kids make the
choice to talk during that part or go to the bathroom or whatever.
They didn't really appreciate the accountability of camp counsellors
to a mixed group of parents, but otherwise I could kinda see their
point..

yes. And generally I find that if you do need to edit out more than a few
seconds of a movie, it really isn't the right movie for the audience. Beth

Suppose that the parent doesn't like it and the child does?

grandma Rosalie