New Style of Children's Movie

The ugly, yet lovable ogre, sword swinging teens, magical youngsters on brownsticks facing down evil. These and more have become the face of 'children's entertainment'. Even the concept of children's entertainment has undergone a facelift in recent times, and been rebranded as 'family entertainment', allowing film makers and TV writers to fill shows with more adult jokes and one-liners to engage the interest of older members of the family unit. Though this has been seen as a blessing in recent years, allowing parentst to enjoy the movie going experience with children, and being willing to sit down with children and watch the same productions on TV, it seems to be yet another bleeding of the lines between the child and the adult. While the children will not understand programs, jokes and references on the same level as their parents will, it still does not seem fair to the children to have their entertainment hijacked by parents wishes. There would no doubt be a huge uproar if the nightly news began showing clips featuring the teletubbies or Barney the Dinosaur to entertain possible children watching. Much of our society seems aimed at aging children, we buy them dolls with adult clothes and accessories to match. All dolls now seem to require a car, a house, some sort of portable media device and make up to be considered complete. This creates an impression on the children as to their own standard of behaviour, and they in turn begin to wish to match their dolls accessories. After all, it is now very rare to see a child without a mobile phone or an iPod. We are taking so much of the innocence and simplicity away from childhood, we are lathering their lives in two many layers of innuendo and hidden meanings, it becomes only natural that they want to understand, to grow up, to know the answers.When we laugh at a joke they don't understand (usually because it's not age appropriate for them) they automatically demand to know why that is funny. Children, as with all human beings, want to be part of their pack and they want to stand as an equal. We place too much time and emphasis on making them feel accepted, equal and happy that we seem to forget that they are just children. While we may complain about taking them to a movie like Snow White or Nanny McPhee or any other movie without an adult subplot we seem to be forgetting how short childhood really is. How rare and precious the time when we laugh at someone falling over, or brightly coloured balloons and enjoy the simple magic of things turing out alright in the end, without any yucky kissing or pointless violence. We need to remember that children are children, not merely smaller adults and treat them accordingly, and the movies we show them may well be a good start in regaining the world of children, rather then forcing them to early into the world of adults.