Unlike when I was growing up, my children have access to any number of movies or shows at any time.
With the magic of movies on demand, Netfwix (as it is called in our house) and specialty kids channels (I'm talking to you, Treehouse and Disney Jr.), our kids do not have to just "watch what's on."
How many of us who grew up in the late '70s and early '80s would have actually watched the cartoon Hercules if there were other options available?
When we were able to rent a movie (plus the VCR when it was really new), we had limits of what was available.Because I do not like to try new things (even more so when I was a kid), I tended to watch the same movies over and over again, to the utter delight of my parents (I'm sure).
I liked to watch (on endless repeats) The Neverending Story and the He-Man and She-ra Crossover episodes.As with most kids of my era, I also watched any and all of the Disney movies whenever I got the chance (except for Pinocchio which I still find to be horrifically boring).
My husband and I realized that our children have not been initiated into the wider scope of classic Disney movies and we have been trying to correct that over the past few months.On family movies nights, we have been watching such classic movies such as The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast and, most recently, Dumbo.
Dumbo is my husband's first movie that he remembers seeing in the theatre (mine was Cinderella) and we were excited to re-watch it with our kids.Since it has likely been thirty years since we last watched Dumbo, a few things about the movie surprised us.
For one, the whole stork scene at the beginning of the movie I had completely forgotten about.Also Mr. Stork is voiced by the same man (Sterling Holloway) who is the voice of Kaa in the Jungle Book, Pooh from Winne the Pooh and the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. I also had completely forgotten that Dumbo doesn't speak.
Ever.
The most surprising part about the movie (besides the fact that it was only an hour long) was the casual racism. As with re-watching Peter Pan, my husband and I looked at each other with extreme discomfort.So what do we do about this and how do we talk about this with our children?
I don't believe that we can brush it off as a product of its time and leave it at that.Part of our responsibility as parents is to raise good citizens. So how do we do that? Avoid watching the movies and pretending they don't exist?Or do we watch the movie with them and try to discuss the issues in an age appropriate manner?
Short answer: I have no idea.Likely, we will try to discuss the issue with them in an age-appropriate manner. I will let you know how it goes.
