This article at Salon.com, “Having Kids Made me a Movie Wuss”, really struck home recently. We had never seen “Slumdog Millionaire” (oh, cultural illiterate that I am) and rented it. Things were good, although getting creepy with the little kids, until…well, if you’ve seen it, you know.
We couldn’t finish it. We were both too repulsed by the scene to continue, Academy Award or not.
The same thing with “Flightplan”. Jodie Foster’s character lives out one of my worst nightmares, and I couldn’t finish it.
I thought I was just extremely hypersensitive, until I read this and felt VERY normal. Especially since the guy is a DAD.
I first became aware of the problem in 2001. My older son was then a little over a year old, and for a grown-up treat, my partner and I called in a babysitter and went to see “A Beautiful Mind,” thinking it would be the uplifting story of a genius mathematician who struggles with schizophrenia. Which it was. Until the moment when John Nash (Russell Crowe) leaves his baby in a bathtub and turns on the water and walks out of the room.
He’s convinced that his imaginary friend Charles is watching the baby when in fact no one is there. The water’s rising … the baby’s crying. An ancient suspense device, I told myself, traceable to the days of penny dreadfuls and serialized melodramas. And how little its provenance mattered in that moment! A cold ribbon of sweat welled up from my temples and dribbled down my face and gathered in my collar bones. My skin prickled. My heart beat like Judgment Day. Get … the baby … out of the bath.
The jitters of a new dad, you’ll say. I assumed the same thing, but no amount of parental experience would make it go away. Just a couple of years ago, I went to see “Slumdog Millionaire,” thinking it would be the uplifting story of a young man who finds salvation in a game show. Which it was. Until the moment when a boy (not our hero) is chloroformed and….. A few seconds of screen time, no more, but I watched in a vise of horror until I couldn’t watch anymore. And even when I closed my eyes, all I could see were my boys being overpowered, sedated, ….. in exactly the same way. All I could feel was how easy it would be to do this very thing to them.
Oh, relief. There are other parents like me out there, ‘movie wusses’. I’ll own it.
I was able to watch “The Road” this summer, although I left the room for The Basement Scene. The difference was I knew there was a happy ending (well, sort of), and reading the book was so traumatic that I knew the movie couldn’t go any worse. It didn’t.
Muhaha…you singles, you yet childless couples, laugh at your peril. This will be YOU someday 
.
I don’t know about this! I’m single and I already have fears about my future children and my cousins…these movies are freaky! I haven’t seen flight plan but I have seen “Slumdog Millionaire” and it is horrible…I can’t watch that movie again. Oh, the joys of being single for just a little longer
Movies? I don’t even have time for movies anymore!
Not a big movie buff, but books… I’ve become a book wuss. “Kite Runner”? Couldn’t read it. Definitely didn’t see the movie. Skipped “Q&A” altogether (aka the book for “Slumdog”). My mind is way too visual during book-reading sessions. Movies I can forget or block out, but books for some reason stick with me in a way that movies never do.
I remember that scene from “A Beautiful Mind.” Even though I didn’t have kids, I was incredibly uncomfortable with the bathtub scene he was describing.
Omg I can so relate!! Do not watch a movie called “precious” or the kite runner
Disturbed me so much! Truth is most stories are based on realities that happen everday
Kids get molested raped murdered beaten up by maids and their own parents
U being a mom makes u even more furious imagining what u would do to someone who even thought of harming ur children! I don’t think
There is a limit to what a mom would do to protect her kids. Maybe not watchin those movies is kind like denial we don’t want to accept that this is the world we live in.
Its like looking the other way. But I believe they raise awareness and affect many so strongly like they have affected u and others. God bless u and ur kids
Wintersamar, welcome to my blog and to Jordan! True, and aunt or uncle (which are you?) would have a similar reaction. Yes, enjoy your singleness, but use the time when you are so free wisely as it will shrink when you marry and have children.
Nikki!!!!! Of course, ya mama jadeedeh. DVDs are a cheap, fun date-night when you are too tired to move from baby-care. Let’s visit soon!
Sharon, I am the same way, after reading ‘Jurassic Park’ I remember seeing a shadow and having a waking though that the bars were not strong enough to repel a raptor. Nice to see you!
Um LuLe, oh no, we got “Kite Runner” and now both you and Sharon are saying it is of the same genre!! True that you do begin to imagine yourself a lion protecting her cubs. I will watch it and try and turn the fear to production preparation to protect kids, mine and others.