Monday, September 2, 2013

World War C: Parents Take Their Toddlers to See a Zombie Apocalypse Movie

The “C” stands for “Children”.

It's been a little over a week since I posted in this blog.  I took some time off, but I've got something on my mind:

I am disgusted!  My friend Kenny and I went to the movies today to see World War Z, the latest thing in box-office blockbusters about a zombie apocalypse, this one starring Hollywood golden-boy Brad Pitt.  

The film had all kinds of zombies and death.  The only good thing I can say about this from a moral standpoint is that, once bitten, the zombies leave the victims alone.  Unlike most other zombie films, the filmmakers thankfully didn’t relish excessive gore, and the cameras didn’t tend to linger over needless scenes of bloody zombies eating entrails or tearing bodies apart with their hands and teeth.  With that said, it still shows plenty of death.  Victims writhe and wriggle, twist and thrash about as the virus takes hold of them, effectively killing them and turning them into demented, raving zombies in about 10 seconds.  Then they join their zombie brethren in trying to spread this virus to anyone and everyone they can sink their teeth into, and they are extremely determined to do just that.  These aren’t the slow, shuffling zombies of George Romero’s original zombie trilogy.  These are the limber and speedy raving lunatics of 28 Days Later, The Return of the Living Dead, and the remake of Dawn of the Dead.  In fact, they’re quicker than even that, and multiplied by the thousands!
So while the film has its fair share of close zombie encounters with milky-eyed freaks, some with parts of their face missing revealing their clicking, biting teeth, it also has plenty of scenes of CGI zombie hoards overturning buses and climbing walls like single-minded killer ants!
     But the most disturbing thing about this movie wasn’t taking place on the screen, but rather out in the audience.  I saw this film on Labor Day afternoon at a discount theater filled with entire families.  I was very disturbed as I left the theater with my friend, taking note of all the little boys and girls accompanying their families out of the theater at the same time.  
There weren’t just one or two teenagers either.  There were teenagers and preteens, of course, but there were also many children under the age of 10, some no higher than my knee!  While the parents on the screen tried to protect and shield their kids from the zombie carnage taking place all around them, the parents in the theater had no such qualms, perhaps thinking it’s all okay because it’s all just fantasy.  Kids who can’t read even Dr. Seuss books yet are watching unquantifiable amounts of blood and carnage projected on the big screen, and my guess is that this was just another normal day for them.  I’d be willing to bet that if we went to an afternoon showing of The Conjuring, the latest demonic haunting “It” movie, there would be children in the audience.  Disgusting!  
To me, this is a form of child abuse!  Is it that the parents or guardians aren’t thinking, or don’t care, or do they think there’s no harm in toddlers watching an extremely violent zombie apocalypse?  And don’t tell me that these parents are the nurturing type, who will discuss the themes and meanings of this brutal movie with their children afterwards.  Any parent who would take a toddler to see a film like this is not the type to discuss it with them afterwards, even if it would do any good.
If you are a parent, and you are reading this, and you take your children to a movie like this, or let them watch stuff like this on TV, let me just say, “You aren’t doing them any favors!”   Where have we come as a country, as a society, when we casually take a four or five year old to a bloody, frenetic, violent zombie apocalypse film?
     I’ll tell you where we are.  We are on a precipice, staring into the abyss!  What kind of adults will these children turn out to be?  I am frightened by the prospect of what the future holds for a nation that doesn’t care, that doesn’t choose wisely.
     Even I'm not above it.  I’m a Christian, and before I became a Christian, I had developed a liking for the horror movie genre.  From the old Universal horror movie classics to 70’s and 80’s favorites like Jaws, Carrie, Aliens, and The Fly, to the more modern film terrors of Pan’s Labyrinth, Let Me In, and 1408, I’ve found I still enjoy, as one character from An American Werewolf in London once said, “A right old scare!”  And as a Christian, I sometimes wonder if I should.
     But there’s no question that children should not be subjected to this!  Letting a sixteen year old see a film like this is one thing.  Letting a six year old see a film like this is something else entirely!  Why are so many parents taking their kids to films like this, or letting them watch anything on TV, including even toddlers?  Don’t they worry about what affect this will have on their kids?
     But in a country that fights for the rights of mothers to kill their babies still in the womb, or strike any mention of God from our public schools and buildings unless it is to say that He is a myth, is it any wonder our moral compass is damaged?
     I weep for the future, I really do!

     If you are a parent allowing your young children to see this kind of death and violence on screen, might I just say one word?  “STOP!”  If we keep subjecting our children to this kind of violence, it's like zombie hoards attacking a helicopter:  Pretty soon, we're gonna crash!

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