"'Don't worry, Cindy! We'll pretend this never happened. You know, like the time we got drunk and went down on each other! '- Buffy Gilmore, Scary Movie"
Jamie Lee Curtis and moms everywhere think Halloween is too scary for kids. She's wrong.
Submitted by Superheidi on 10/30/2009
Today on her Huffington Post Blog, Jamie Lee Curtis (best known to horror fans as the original Lori Strode in John Carpenter's Halloween, as well as the star of thr original The Fog, Prom Night and Terror Train), shows us she's actually very anti-horror on Halloween.
Her desire to 'tone down' the gore on halloween, especially when it comes to kids, just really gets my panties in a twisted, bleeding bunch.
"Halloween, the holiday, is a breeding ground for a seemingly unending gruesome gore fest," says Curtis. "Has it always been this way? I don't think so. I remember Halloween as a time to dress up in a costume other than myself. That was what was fun..."
"The fact that my film nemesis," she continues, "And if you ever see the forgettable Halloween 8, my subsequent murderer, Michael Myers (for the uninformed, he is the one in the gray jumpsuit and white mask brandishing a butcher knife) was, this morning, on the front page of the New York Times being modeled by a six-year-old. A six-year-old. A six-year-old. Are you kidding me? WTF is going on? Are we really so inured to the realities of violence that we think it's cute that six-year-olds are trick or treating as mass murderers? That their best friend is going as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre-er, replete with realistic sounding chainsaw dripping blood.
Often when I am doing a book signing for one of my children's books a young fan will come up with their parents, get their book signed and then (breaking the rules of the book signing) try to slide their well worn DVD of Halloween for me to sign. I look at this young child and ask, 'Have you seen this?' and they say, 'Yes...and Halloween 2 and Friday the Thirteenth' etc., and I snap a look to their parents, like I'm sure that prick who shouted 'liar' was snapped during Obama's address, and glare and say with my eyes, "Are you insane? I really should call Child Protective Services.
We have to stop and ask what are we doing or saying to our children that this level of violence is acceptable for our children... As I write this I am rethinking our spider display outside our home. Is it too scary for the neighborhood children, many of them young, who walk by our house on their way to the local grade school, a school where I hope they will be taught right from wrong, truth and consequences and that I hope that they will then go home and teach their parents?"
Curtis isn't the only one falls into this super-protective mindset whenever the precious tenderness of children is mentioned. There is an article in the NY Times today about what costumes are 'acceptable' for your kids and what are not.
For instance, in Illinois, students are being encouraged to dress up as historical characters or delicious food items rather than vampires or zombies. In Texas, a school has issued suggestions for “positive costumes” for the annual Halloween dance. At Riverside Drive, a Los Angeles public school in the San Fernando Valley, the Halloween parade will have no horror in it.
“We’re balancing a tradition here with the times we live in,” said Tom Hernandez, a spokesman for District 202 in Plainfield, Ill., where costumes depicting animals and food (preferably carrots or pumpkins) are in favor.
Carrots? as an effing costume?
What happened to the good old days when kids like me would run home terrified and crying because the kid next door dressed up like Michael Meyers and chased me around the street with a rubber knife? THAT was freakin' halloween. Yes, I pissed myself, but I wouldn' trade that memory for the world. I remember one Haloween I watched Pumpkinhead on TV during the day and was actually nervous all day long because I was so disturbed by the images I saw. THAT was a great Halloween. I haven't ever been scared like that as an adult, and I miss it.
Halloween, thanks to rich, overprotective mothers, is turning into a bland and boring holiday wher ethe moms will carve happy faces on the pumpkins for the kids (knives are sharp) and dress their kids like carrots, and moniter their trick or treating no matter how old they are, and prevent them from scaring each other or basically doing anything fun ever, for the rest of their lives.
Then these kids grow up and why we wonder we have 22-year-old men acting like teenagers, unable to have adult relationships or take anything in school seriously, who refuse to get jobs and who have no respect for women as adults - because MOMMY wouldn't let them grow up.
Jamie - here's an idea. Show your kids Halloween, the original. Scare the shit out of them, give them nightmares. Fuck, you made the damn movie, didn't you?
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Cut and paste is great! Here
Cut and paste is great! Here are my thoughts (again, in case anyone gives a shit): Hmmm,I have a six year old who is a fan of all things horror and a four year old who can barely handle being told BOO let alone anything my six year old can "digest".
Kids NEED to kill monsters. They need to understand monsters. They need to identify monsters so they know how to face them. I don't think people should force their children to watch horror and gore and violence (especially the violence) but if your children enjoy some of these scary things--then so be it. It opens the floor for discussion. Halloween is for being scared shitless. It is for remembering good times, loved ones past, and to realize mortality. There is nothing better than going dressed as a serial killer to confront that.
As a mother, that's my job: to encourage independence. To encourage creativity. To encourage individuality and success. It is an individual choice, however, on what you think is appropriate for children. But MY kids are not one-in-the-same and if one wants to be a frickin' carrot, and my other child wants be a huge radioactive rabbit who loves to eat little kids dressed like carrots. Then by all means, I won't stop either one of them.
I agree and disagree, as
I agree and disagree, as usual. Curtis is actually onto something, but she needs to shit or get off the pot. If you're going to take the high road and denounce occult programming, fine. But you can't have it both ways. "This is too gory" or "that is too scary" is just a matter of taste, and in her case it sounds like she kind of has bad taste. I support anyone who wants to have a serious conversation about how occult programming is used on society through entertainment, but that's not what she's doing. Otherwise, if you're going to celebrate Halloween, don't be a pussy about it.
I am pretty much in agreement
I am pretty much in agreement with Curtis (boo, hiss, I know). Little kids need to be innocent as long as they can. Thanks to being exposed to violence and gore in movies, etc, as a really young kid, I couldn't get into my bed without a running leap until I was...embarrassingly old. I went from one extreme to another, and now I'm so desensitized to horror that I almost sort of mourn that loss of innocence.
I shelter my kids. I know neither one of them can handle anything 'scary' right now. Walking into Walmart around Halloween leaves my 8 year old a shaking, nervous mess, and my 5 year old discussing ways to kill people if she were a monster. Part of me thinks thats cute, but a bigger part of me thinks that's a little morbid for a 5 year old.
I make fun of the idiots who act like Twilight is as close to horror as they'll ever get, but would sort of rather my kids grow up without the influence that I did.
If they want to watch horror movies and read horror novels and all when they get older, or dress like serial killers or whatever on Halloween (althouhg we don't actually celebrate Halloween LOL) fine, as long as they are old enough to understand reality from fantasy, especially regarding violence. I want them to be able to handle it, emotionally, mentally.
Up to the parents....
It's up to the parents on whether or not their children are mature enough to handle the subject matter. Unfortunately, just because it's on the shelf, parents still haven't learned they don't actually have to pick it up, especially if they think it's not right. Personally, I'm not down with Michael Myers children costumes or Freddy or Leatherface. I'm not okay with showing the old slasher or gory horror films to anyone younger than 13 or 14. New hardcore gore like Hostel and Saws should be left to the +17 crowd. This is MY opinion. If your kid can handle it, good for you. I'm going this way, you go way that.
Yes, the gore and sleaze factor has been turned up on costumes and decorations yet again, retailers are just following the market, trends, etc, but parents can still keep it innocent. They just need to be tougher on the whiny little brats they brought into this world.
I'm a little tired of people passing the buck. You're the parent, make the decisions. Your kids are going to grow up with or without you but you can make the choices that keep their innocence lingering.
My house is mostly decorated with cutesy halloween stuff that my 20yr son laughs at. Been that way all my life. Yes, he watches the Saws, Hostels and all the gory movies now. But, he also really liked Trick r Treat which was not gory and also Drag Me to Hell which was PG13. And, yesterday he even watched Bugs Howl-a-ween with me. I tried to keep it balanced. I think I did my job.
If you're really concerned with violence and gore, then push It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown a little more than the animontronic demon toddler eating an arm. And, if you want your house to look like zombies threw up on it, gore and ignore! It's really not that hard.
My screenname is dedicated to
My screenname is dedicated to her character in Halloween but her going off on other parents about their parenting skills is ridiculous. I am not even close to being a parent yet so I can't comment from experience. Personally I wouldn't shelter my kids from horrifying stuff in general but I wouldn't force them to watch it either. It is a delicate balance and you have to know how your kids can handle it. That being said I think the costumes are a little much. I mean having killer costumes for 6 year olds are crazy even if you do let them watch gory old horror movies.
When I do booksignings, my
When I do booksignings, my novel Swamp Baby attracts kids like flies to poop. I guess it's the dripping, gross doll head on the cover or something. I used to tell the ones who were obviously under 13 or 14 to get their mom or dad to come look at the book first, and then they could buy it. It's gory and gross, involves cannibals, inbreds, panther attacks, and a couple of crazy people, so by my definition, definitely rated 'R'.
After a while, I decided if a parent lets a kid run around a huge, crowded store all alone, then they aren't really into the whole parental supervision thing, so if the kid wants to shell out $13 for a book, it's not my place to censor them.
Scary, not gory
I have to agree with Curtis on a few things. First, any parent letting their pre-teen kids watch Friday the 13th really needs a parenting skills class. And Leatherface is really not an appropriate kid's costume.
I have to offer up this disclaimer: I am not a parent. And I'm getting to the point in my life where having a kid is just not in the cards for me. It's nothing I regret, but it's just reality.
But, while I was still interested in having children, I made the decision to put most of my horror collection under lock and key should I ever have a child. This is simply because too much horror out there has images that kids don't need to see. An axe to the face IS NOT something a pre-teen needs to see.
However, I disagree that kids should be protected from scary stuff. I've talked with parents that wish Disney would edit down Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, because it's too scary for their children.
Kids not only need to be scared, they WANT to be scared. It's fun and it's instructive, allowing kids to face their fears in a safe manner.
Dressing kids as carrots, making sure no monsters jump out of darkened corners of the haunted house is doing children no good. Fear and scares are a part of life, and facing them in a safe environment (haunted houses on Halloween, scary movies like Monster Squad and such) is part of growing up.
Kids don't need to see any of the Saw films. But Curtis's Halloween is perfect for the early teens out there. Scare the kids, don't gross them out.