I have not (and probably will not) shown my children any movie in the “Star Wars” universe. This is not a reaction to the Disney-fication of Star Wars or to any content-related objection, nor will I complain if they want to watch it on their own. This is simply my reaction to my generation forcing its culture on our kids.
I am 35 and my children range from 2 to 3. They are currently fed a steady diet of Sesame Street, Daniel Tiger, Sophia the First, Dino Dana/Dan and whatever else they manage to convince me to let them watch on Netflix/PBS Kids etc. I end up watching a lot of incidental children’s television (over and over and over…) so I spend a good deal of this time zoned out thinking about what I want them exposed to.
My parents (born in the late 30s – early 40s) could not have given fewer fucks about whether I was intimately familiar with Wile E. Coyote’s addiction to mail-order Acme WMDs.
Figure 1. What a Maroon!
Not that we didn’t have fun watching these hijinks together, but usually it was because they wandered into the room while engaged in grown-up shit and decided to join me for some cartoons. Herein lies the crux of my argument: our kids need to find, or create, their own culture. Star Wars, the current McDonalds of Movies, was originally popular because it was a fun movie whose original take on the monomyth structure resonated with audiences, not because the teenagers who saw it had been raised from birth to devour anything with a light saber on it. Can a four-year-old really appreciate how it would feel to find out that the asshole who just chopped off your hand is your long, lost father? Are they going to feel a corresponding catharsis later during Vader’s death scene? Or are they just going to dress up like young Lumpy for Life Day? Also, fuck Life Day. And May the Fourth.
Figure 2. Lumpy sure has grown!
Please, can we just play with our toddlers without involving characters from comic books they can’t read, movies they shouldn’t watch, or video games they can’t play? Their imaginations are far more interesting. We are not going to lose our childhoods by letting them have their own; we may even gain new ones.
Figure 3. Avery’s Koala-thing Poops Fucking JEWELS for God’s Sake!
In summary, I will not agonize over when I should show my kids Ghostbusters; no matter how much I love that movie, dressing my kid up as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man for Halloween is about me, not them.
Figure 4. Average morning at my house
Scientific Dadding 