Not kids stuff

Thanks to a huge improvement in the physical quality of our cinemas, as well as in the amazing range of films we can watch today, going to the cinema is a pleasurable experience for the young and the not so young.

However, we seem to be unable, reluctant or unwilling to take some basic steps to ensure that small people are protected and watch what they should be watching.

Films classified as U are a case in point. We watch these films with our youngest kids confident that all is well. But is it?

Why is it that when watching a U film we have to watch trailers of films that are clearly not U?

Trailers are often more intense than the films themselves and it is objectionable to have one's three-year-old happily preparing to watch something like a Winnie the Pooh film having to watch a nasty scene from a Schwarzenegger film, to take one possible combination!

The last time on children's cinema day (which is a great initiative and one to be applauded) we had a naked woman happily walking along (a scene from a Schwarzeneger film) before a real kiddies' film (that is, classified as U which the Schwarzeneger film was not).

The violence we had to watch was, of course, far worse.

This probably happens because there are so very few films which are U that the cinema owners would have no trailer to show! But, please, if you do not have a U trailer just do not show a trailer of a film which is not U!

Films here generally seem to lose their U rating because of a small amount of nudity or a large chunk of violence. The nudity is, of course, nothing like as harmful as the violence which we ram down our kids in every computer game and in so many films.

And, yet, even here our censors seem to miss the point. Why is sex or, more specifically, viewing a body without clothes on regarded as so much more harmful, or on a par with, gratuitous violence?

I have seen so many incredibly violent films here classified as PG. I wonder what parental guidance really means? No parent will have seen the film before, so what guidance can we give? So what are we saying? Why do we not just say a film is only suitable only for a child beyond a certain age and stop there?

Why should a film with no violence at all but containing scenes where parts of a body can be seen be classified as harmful as a violent one?

I suppose this reflects the concerns in our society. We all talk and moan and worry about our young girls, how they dress, how girls and boys engage in sex early in life, how parties degenerate into much more. But we rarely talk about how violent our society is becoming.

Perhaps it always was but the amount of verbal and physical violence that goes on in front of and behind closed doors is worrying because it elicits no interest and almost no discussion.

Not long ago, while walking to the cinema with my six-year-old, I came across this young couple, who looked like 15-year-olds, arguing loudly. Suddenly he pushed her against the wall, punching and threatening her. He could see me there and yet proceeded. Luckily a police car was just down the road but it seemed that this is all pretty normal humdrum stuff to them!

Maybe he got a warning or perhaps nothing at all because of his age but, no doubt, his wife and kids will experience the same treatment one day...

Are we really concerned about the violence all around us and where it is coming from?

If we are not even able to stop our youngest citizens from watching it in the cinema, what chance will we ever have of creating a less aggressive society all around?

Something almost all of us would benefit from, incidentally...