Still recovering from the huge bash on Friday night. Man, those people have serious issues. I mean, by the time the movie got started, dudes were off the hook! See if I ever take the family to a High School Musical 2 party ever again.
Actually, our hosts were some of the bravest people I know, namely because they invited not only kids that would be sucked in and zombified by the latest Disney confection, but their younger siblings as well. And there were lots of them. The final effect was like trying to watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest from the Cuckoo's Nest.
I was actually grateful for the distraction. I am not a fan, though I should disclose that despite endless reruns I still have not seen HSM2 all the way through.
My first question is: how many people actually in high school would want to watch High School Musical 2? Maybe a few musical theatre nerds. But the most popular TV movie ever broadcast was not really aimed at high school kids. The most effective vehicle for KGOYS (Kids Getting Older Younger Syndrome) ever is said to appeal to early teen and to tweens. But watching my six-year-old first grade daughter's response was scary. She could not be torn away. Disney knows it and loves it.
So from here on out I am banning: All High School Musicals, The Suite Life of Zach and Cody, Drake and Josh, The Cheetah Girls, Hannah Montana and any other live-action teeny Disney shows I can find. I may just parental block the whole freakin' channel.
For the simple reason that these shows are too sexy. Maybe I'm just a prude old fart, but it seemed to me that in this installment the outfits were skimpier, the choreography and scenes more sexually suggestive. Did anybody else notice this incremental shift?
It's too soon for my daughter to be thinking of boy-girl relations to be primarily fueled by sexuality. The sad thing is that it's probably too late. My middle-child laxity as already taken its toll.
Time to reflect, take stock, before I fly off the handle. Things aren't that different from when I was a kid. I tried to think back to my own childhood and indeed I remembered that when I was exactly Middle's age I did get obsessed with a movie. As a matter of fact the movie was filmed in my home town. The star was the brother of a friend of a friend, and we followed his every move with slavish devotion. I saw the movie again and again – knew the dialogue by heart. See, things aren't that different now.
That movie was Benji.
Pass the Parental Controls, please.
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Comments: 25
I'm so glad that I don't have cable!
I can't pass judgment on HSM2 because I haven't seen it yet.
My daughter went to a HSM2 party though....I stopped by after the movie and the girls were watching a new episode of Hannah Montana...boy Miley's voice is grating. The girls at the party ranged in age from 8 to 11 (3rd to 6th grade)...and they were all more interested in The Jonas Brothers being on Hannah Montana than the show itself.
Here's to bucking the trend and fighting the good fight. Obviously we recognize our limitations in insulating the kids (and don't want to isolate them), but a parent has to trust his or her gut when it comes to this stuff, I think.
I wanted to comment about what Janet "Jax" B. said, though.
I also have a 10 year old and it is really hard to find things that are not "sexy". She wears a girls 8 slim, and I can not find anything but hip hugger skinny "perky butt" jeans for her. I feel like buying 10 - 12 LONG t-shirts to accompany the jeans we bought for her for school this year...
About the only thing that we as parents can do is try to avoid the sexy styles in the "little kid" clothes and buy just the brands that have more covering styles for those ages. I know Old Navy and Levi still have the basic cut jeans and clothing, and Faded Glory from Walmart seem to ride a little higher in the waist of their jeans.
I would love it if kids magazines stayed away from featuring these stars that have criminal records and are not what we want our children to end up copying or thinking is how they want to be.
A few years ago, I saw an article that said girls are going into puberty at increasingly younger ages, and they suspected that it had to do with diet and the social pressures to grow up faster!!! We as parents need to do all we can to put on the brakes!
And HSM can't be any worse than Grease and I was surprisingly allowed to watch that at 6 yrs old.
The Grease comment cracks me up because that is the most sexually explicit film ever to find its way into the "Family" cannon, and I watched it a million times. So I'm a huge hypocrite. But you knew that already.
While I'm not disputing that these shows are a bit too sexy, I just wanted to point out that the age of the audience compared to the age of the characters is normal. Kids like reading and watching shows about people a couple years older than them. The Baby Sitter's Club was written about girls in middle school, read by girls just barely out of elementary school - and somehow looking back I always thought of middle school then what high school really was. If that makes any sense. You watch or read about characters older than you, who are actually acting even older than that. And it's weird. But strangely normal.
Your example is good. Hardy Boys, too. When I was a kid, I had to watch adults on TV -- Dick Van Dyke, Lucille Ball, Gilligan's Island -- all on reruns. It was all that was on.
I don't know, I would rather my kids learn the "facts of life" too early than too late.