Deprivations in Childhood

As a child, my mother was extraordinarily strict with the movies and TV shows I was allowed to watch. She was restrictive since I can remember, but I never noted it until she disallowed my brother and me to watch "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." It was devasting. But, the results were very obvious. Despite being good children, we would play "Ninja Turtles" and end up beating each other and screaming at each other. Violence between my brother and myself subsided considerably when we were watching "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago" instead. I did grow to appreciate my mother's active parenting role, but many have claimed that my "sheltered" growing up has left me disconnected with a huge portion of American culture: mindless children's media.

Well, I delved into this culture last night. I went to Kelly's, a friend's, house and they were talking about movies that were central to their childhood, and she and her sister pulled out a movie called, "Labyrinth." The movie sounded vaguely familiar and my first thought was that my mother did not allow me to watch it. After finishing watching the movie, I was pretty sure she would not have allowed my brother and I to watch it because it probably would've given us nightmares. But, did I feel deprived? Good God, no.

This movie is about a young girl (Jennifer Connelly... Big Plus) who loves to get lost in stories and playing with her toys, but who hates caring after her baby half-brother. She wishes that goblins would come and take him away, and they do. She is taken to another land and given the opportunity to save her brother if she completes the labyrinth that leads to the goblin King's castle (David Bowie... Big negative). I do try to keep in mind that this movie was made in 1986, but I don't think even that can excuse how bad it is. David Bowie dancing around with goblins in skin tight costumes, singin about... I don't even know and I don't wish to know. It compounds weird on top of really weird with a lot of bad acting thrown into the middle. Granted, it does have some good morals (love your siblings, be tenacious, be friendly, and so on and so forth), but I don't think that can excuse the rest of the film (farting swamps, creatures that remove their appendages to toss them around, David Bowie's character attempting to seduce Jennifer Connelly's character, who is 20 years his junior and so on and so forth). Who would ever expose their children to this? Somehow I feel grateful that my life has been so empty and medialess.