Tag Archives: parenting

One big thing Star Wars is getting WRONG

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PG-13 rating

SPOILER ALERT! This post discusses specific plot points of the first SIX Star Wars movies, but it DOES NOT include spoilers for Episode VII: The Force Awakens. If you haven’t yet seen Episodes I-VI, consider yourself warned that key details will be discussed below. 

 

I love “Star Wars”. I remember seeing the original trilogy at The Uptown Theatre in DC when I was a kid, loving every minute of these amazing space spaghetti Westerns that George Lucas created for us. The popularity of the original “Star Wars” even earned it a posthumous retitling, where “Episode IV: A New Hope” became part of the name in all of the marketing material instead of just the opening crawl. “The Empire Strikes Back” (Episode V) is one of the few sequels to be truly on par with the original (if not, in some ways, better), and “Return of the Jedi” (Episode VI) was a solid end to the original three, marred only by the Ewoks’ ear-clogging “Jub Jub” song.

Fast forward 14 years, and “Special” editions are rolled-out: enhanced, re-CGI’ed, and–unfortunately–altered states of reality, such as one where Greedo shot first. (I don’t care what manner of Sith torture they aim at me, HAN SHOT FIRST and you’ll never get me to believe anything else.) Lucas used the new technology of the time to rewrite canon, not even deigning to feed us all retcon in our popcorn; the best part of these films was getting to see the majority of the movies we loved on the big screen again.

Starting a mere two years later, we got the prequels: Episodes I – III. These movies were problematic from start to finish. “Episode I: The Phantom Menace” was largely useless, introducing a character we’d love to hate (like Jar Jar Binks) and providing only minimal buildout of the Skywalker clan’s backstory. “Episode II: Attack of the Clones” fared better, although the brutally written love story of Anakin and Padme was enough to make Shakespeare spin in his grave; let Lucas build a universe, but for the love of all that’s holy, please never let him write another “romantic” line in a screenplay ever again. And then we come to “Episode III: Revenge of the Sith”, where Lucas finally had to finish what he started. It was at this point where he needed to show how Anakin became Darth Vader, and he also had to give out more doses of retcon when it came to the birth of the Skywalker twins, Luke and Leia.

(In “Return of the Jedi”, Leia explains to Luke that she only remembers her mother very slightly, and how beautiful and sad she was; we expect that this was supposed to be Padme–who later we see died in childbirth–so it’s either a continuity error or Lucas meant for that other woman to have been her adoptive mother, Queen Breha Organa of Alderaan.)

So, after all my complaining about Lucas’ poor writing skills and his being so utterly hypnotized by CGI advancement as to wreck key plot points, what is it that bothers me?

It’s the escalating violence–because it’s unclear that it consistently serves the plot although it does potentially jeopardize younger viewership.

The new film, “Episode VII: The Force Awakens”, received the same rating as Episode III: PG-13. These are the only two movies in the released slate of seven that have such a rating; the others were all PG (the original trilogy completed a year before the PG-13 rating was introduced). Now, granted, bad things have to happen to Anakin in order for him to turn into the part-metal Sith Lord that we would see from Episodes IV-VI. And it’s totally understandable that it couldn’t all happen off-screen; you need to see the impassable breach between Anakin and Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan mutilating Anakin and leaving him for dead certainly provides ample justification. But still, there’s plenty of violence and death in Episodes I and II, and both sported PG ratings. In fact, when “The Empire Strikes Back” was re-released in the “Special Edition” format, the rating was reaffirmed as PG, even when PG-13 was a possibility.

DD wanted to see “The Force Awakens” when it came out, so we got her caught up using the “Machete” order (IV-V-II-III-VI), and she was distressed by the violence at the end of Episode III. Truth be told, the Emperor’s torture of Luke at the end of “Return of the Jedi” didn’t sit too well with her, either, but at least it wasn’t nearly so gory as a half-melted, de-limbed Anakin flailing on a beach of cooling lava.

Without getting spoilery on “The Force Awakens”, I can say that it earned its PG-13 rating. Much like Episode III, “The Force Awakens” features scenes of “science fiction violence”, and it isn’t always pretty. Should a nine-year-old see this film? Well, that depends on the nine-year-old, doesn’t it? DH and I went to see the movie Saturday night because YEAY DOUBLE DATE NIGHT and also because we wanted to screen the movie for dd to determine whether it would be suitable for her. It wasn’t at “Game of Thrones Level” (a show dh has long-since stopped watching because the amount of violence and gore exceeded his tolerances by Season Two), but there were a few scenes where it was clear why the MPAA rated it PG-13 instead of PG.

I talked about this a bit on my personal Facebook account, and one of my friends wondered aloud if I thought this way because I am a parent, if my judgment on this was clouded (or biased) by the fact that I was trying to shield my child from something that may be disturbing to her. That’s fair, but it doesn’t diminish my belief that if they could do five out of six films at a level that was rated PG (or if we go with the “modern era”, two out of three), they could make this one PG, too. Did the manner and level of “science fiction violence” advance the plot or contribute in some major way, as it really had to at the end of “Revenge of the Sith”? In my mind, no.  I think it could’ve been toned down ever so mildly to get it to a PG and keep the audience options a bit more open.

If the marketing is any indication, Star Wars is being targeted at both the parents and the kids, with the sweet spot for the kids’ merchandise being below the age range generally able to handle a PG-13 film. A quick search of Target’s website showed that the largest age group targeted for Star Wars products is 3-9 years old. A similar search of the Kohl’s website showed the target age range as “Little Kids” (typically sizes/ages 7 and below), and the number of “Toddler” items was nearly the same as that for “Big Kids” (8 on up). Of course, the Disney juggernaut also paints the world Marvel every time they release a new MCU film, BUT those movies were PG-13 from the get-go and never had a claim to a straight-up PG. They started at the higher rating and stayed there. It’s a matter of consistency in messaging; the merchandise is a signal for the positioning in terms of accessibility and target viewers, as well as who holds the wallet.

Now, I say all of this not having been in the room with J.J. Abrams and Co. as they saw what they would have to do to get to PG and made the decision not to go there. I’m sure they had their reasons. But, much as sex is used to sell everything from burgers to automobiles, I’d like to hope that the violence will be used only as it’s actually needed and that it will only be employed to advance the plot–not to distract from a lack of it. Part of what made “Star Wars” such an incredible franchise, aside from the depths of its philosophy and richness of storylines, is that it’s accessible. The PG-13 rating may seem like no big deal to those of us well past that age, but if the filmmakers want to keep opening this up to the next generation as soon as possible, they need to make sure that they’re doing a bang up job of balancing the needs of the Jedi masters with those of the younglings.

Scar tissue, aka “I wish I could take the pain away, kiddo”

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I don’t often look at the scar on my abdomen. I have a line across my lower belly, a narrow-lipped grimace, the remnant of 8″ incisions cut into me twice over for the births of my two children. I don’t regret the c-sections that gave me that scar, nor do I particularly care whether or not it ever fades completely from view. I doubt it could and, even if it did, a phantom of it would still remain in my mind because of how it connects me to two of the most important people in my life.

My dd will likely now have a scar, although at the tender age of eight and three-quarters years old, hers is from a decidedly less miraculous reason than the birth of a child. In her case, it was just a freak accident.

At camp yesterday, her group was playing a game where they tossed a partially-filled sport drink bottle from kid to kid. If a kid failed to catch it, they were “out”. Apparently, one of the kiddos didn’t catch the bottle and was flagged as “out”. This kiddo’s reaction was to hurl the bottle angrily at top speed–and I guess dd’s forehead was right in the path of the projectile. There’s no indication that it was anything other than an accident; it was an eight year old kid acting out because she was ticked off over getting booted from a game. Even so, it made for quite the day.

I closed up what I could from work as fast as I could (a testament to my AMAZING co-workers that I was able to delegate a few must-do’s to others), and then I raced at top speed to pick her up from camp. Bearing in mind that when camp called, they told me that they thought she needed stitches. Here’s me figuring that they’re possibly exaggerating. Maybe it’s just a big scratch or something.

Yeah, I was dead wrong.

The gash on dd’s forehead was a little less than an inch long but incredibly deep. It reminded me of the lash marks on the faces of characters from the battle between the Sentinels and residents of Zion in the last “Matrix” movie. NOT. GOOD. She was in decent enough spirits for a kid with an open wound on her head, though, so we went home to change her into clean clothes and headed off to get to the Urgent Care center as they opened. (Our doctor’s office can’t put in stitches, and the copay for the co-located Urgent Care is the same as a doctor’s office visit copay, as opposed to the ER copay–which is 4x as much and boasts at least the same waiting time, if not more.)

Everyone at Urgent Care was very sweet, and it was only when the triage nurse needed to irrigate the wound to clean it when dd howled, cried, and tensed her legs in obvious pain. Even so, her struggling was minimal and she squeezed my hand almost as hard as I squeezed hers, both of us so completely frustrated by my inability to wave a magic wand and make it all not be so.

The nurse practitioner was fantastic, as was the pediatric nurse; they numbed her up with a topical mixture heavy on lidocaine that made the injectable lidocaine (which was, unfortunately, still necessary) that much easier for her to handle. Five stitches and a total of two-and-a-half hours later, we emerged into the sunlight, ready to continue our afternoon.

We’ve been given strict limitations on her physical activity for the next 7-10 days (or as long as it takes for the wound to close up), and there are further instructions to keep her from scarring too much. We need to apply sunscreen daily to the site for at least 1-2 years. We need to apply Vitamin E oil daily to the site for at least 1 year. And all of this should (hopefully) preserve dd’s previously pristine face.

And yet I know this is possibly fruitless. She may end up with some kind of scar, due to some other eight year old girl’s dumbass temper tantrum.

I don’t mind that I have a scar. I earned mine at 33 (and again at 36), and I did so knowingly, going in with the understanding that my surgeries would result in a scar. I just wish I could protect dd (and ds) from the scars that are yet to come. Let this be the worst one she ever has to bear. Let this be the toughest visible reminder she has of the fact that other people, sometimes, are just assholes. Because yes, even eight year olds–especially ones that apparently only grudgingly gave half-hearted apologies for opening up another’s forehead–can be assholes. Let’s just call a spade a spade.

I wish it could be not so for her. And that is one of the toughest things that any parent has to bear, how little we can do sometimes to remove burdens from our kids. So I hope that if she does have a scar, her primary memory of it is not the angry, tantrum-throwing brat who hurled that bottle at her. I hope that her main memory is of how badass she was as she took five stitches to the head without so much as a whimper. She’s so strong. She’s so amazing. And she’s more than any scar she’ll ever carry.

The hard truth: some children are just jerks

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mean people suck

Recently, dd came to us nearly in tears over something mean that one of her “friends” from school said to her. My first response (out loud) was something to the tune of, “Well, anyone who’s that mean isn’t worth having as a friend”, but (inside my head) I was thinking “That little piece of…”

Part of the trouble here is that I can’t protect dd from everything–which is every parent’s biggest fear–but part of the trouble is that nothing ever really changes. Kids, not knowing social norms and not having the “filter” that prevents us from simply shouting out all the lovely things we often wish we could say to one another, tend to blurt out mean things simply due to an ignorance of what’s okay to say. Furthermore, kids don’t always have the vocabulary or the emotional strength to know how to express their feelings, so they may channel their own feelings of frustration, hurt, or anger into words that (intentionally or otherwise) frustrate, hurt, or anger others.

It’s the gift that keeps on giving. And boy, do I wish this were one that we could cure with a quick round of penicillin.

I remember what my own childhood was like: I was the veritable ugly duckling. I had a horrific bowl haircut (thanks, 1970’s!), and I was somewhat shy, but I was a generally smart kiddo who managed to get moved up a grade halfway through Kindergarten. When I made it up to 2nd grade, in a “Gifted & Talented” program across county, almost none of the other kids wanted to be friends. They saw a shy, chubby girl and figured that I was easy pickings. (I was.)

Only one girl wanted to be my friend in 2nd grade, and our best friendship would last all the way through our senior year of high school. She was my rock, the one reliable person that I knew I could count on to be nice. The majority of the rest: well, let’s just say that I learned pretty early on how rude kids could be. Jokes about my weight. Jokes about my appearance. Naturally, the very same kids that would tease me relentlessly were also the ones who wanted to copy off my papers; having the only partially formed self-esteem of a young kid, I didn’t yet have the spine to tell them exactly where they could shove their own homework.

As the years passed, I figured out what I was worth–what I deserved and didn’t deserve. It took me YEARS to get to the point where I understood that when people are mean, it often says more about them than it does about the people who they’re being mean to.

I guess the years have passed for the others, as well. There have been various noises from members of my senior class around trying to get everybody together for a 25th year high school reunion. The voices have smoothed out a lot, as time and experience have aged us past the crap we all put each other through lo those many years ago. When I look back at the people who said nice things or who “liked” my post to the reunion page, I see the names of people who were both friends and foes. We’ve all aged out of the awfulness, I hope.

And so I sit, wishing I could speed things up for dd or at least protect her from the awfulness that I know she’ll have to go through over the next few years. She’s many things that I wasn’t at that age. She’s gorgeous. She’s popular. She’s athletic. And she’s so blissfully unaware of how incredibly cool she is.

So I can’t protect her from all that’s out there, but I can still give her hugs and kisses and try to comfort her when the wolves come out to play on her psyche. I guess that’s as much as a mom can do, and it’ll just have to be enough for now.