What Movie Did You Watch at the Cinema When You Were Too Young?
As far as I can remember, the first R-rated movie I saw in theaters was RoboCop 2 , a movie in which a juvenile crime boss is mercilessly gunned down by a drug-addicted killer whose brain has been removed and placed in a robotic cell. a body with a horrific human face, animated with rudimentary computer graphics . I was nine years old.
It is known that the film’s PG-13 rating was not introduced until the summer of 1984, its creation in large part prompted by parental outcry over the violent human sacrifice scenes in the PG-rated film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom . But that doesn’t quite line up with my own memories of growing up in the 80s, an era when most parents I encountered seemed to have no problem letting their kids watch R-rated movies, as long as they didn’t have breasts. in them. (Even though my father was extremely active in a tense Baptist church, my father allowed me to watch The Terminator in elementary school only by fast-forwarding one single sex scene.) The Motion Picture Association has also historically cared about sex much more than violence. — the opposite of how films are classified in Europe , where sex is far more likely to get acclaim than a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle scene using nunchucks — but that doesn’t mean children won’t be affected. Undoubtedly , a number of scientific studies have been aimed at studying the impact of violent and sexual content on the developing consciousness. But I’m not here to discuss the benefits of allowing kids to watch something we all know they probably shouldn’t (I’ve had enough of it when my older child keeps begging to watch Stranger Things ). I just want to know about the unwanted movie experiences that have shaped you. Tell me: what movie did you watch at the cinema when you were too young? How did it affect you? Are you that unfortunate 5-year-old that had me sitting a few seats away from me at a screening of Tarsem’s The Cage , in which the villain implanted hooks in his back so he could hang over the bodies of his victims while masturbating? and where is the vivisection of the horse on the screen ? (If yes, are you okay?) Let me know in the comments and I’ll collect the best answers in the next post.