It was the title of the newspaper article that drew me in: "'Mockingbird' star scouts a return to acting. " Many of us remember Scout's fine performance in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird. I had always wondered if she continued her career. But a couple of her remarks have haunted me since reading the interview. She was asked if she was in the courtroom during the "racy cross examination." Her response was: "I'm not sure our scripts were complete scripts...That's one of the things that was really good about filmmaking in those days. There were subject matters that were not to be discussed in front of children, words they should not hear. Kids are exposed to entirely too much today, not allowed to be kids." (The Seattle times, November 20, 2006)
It reminded me of things I had almost forgotten about my own growing up. In many ways my home and even society allowed me innocence as a child which seems absent for most children today. We do not seem to feel we need to protect our children from knowing and hearing the worst of humanity at a very early age. It blares from our TV's and radios. It assaults our senses everywhere we go.
I really do not believe my innocence was a negative in my life. I was able to face "man's inhumanity to man" and the tragic side of the human condition gradually in small doses and appropriate times. I think there is something to be said for that. Why wouldn't we want our children to be children. We strive to protect our kids from physical harm. I am reminded of it every time I struggle to remove a child protection cap from a bottle. Why don't we protect their minds and hearts?
As a twenty first century high school teacher, I experienced an, in some ways, amusing reversal. My students would often warn me NOT to see certain "R" movies because they were too harsh for me or too sexy. Who is protecting whom?
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Once I walked into a video game store and saw a boy of about five years playing a realistic simulation of shooting people with a rifle. It was very realistic and bloody, and his parents were nowhere to be seen. He had obviously done it before.
With these situations it seems reasonable to conclude that the next generation of parents will be even more desensitized to violence and sexually explicit languages and images, and the standard of what is considered appropriate or safe for children will be lowered yet more. How low will it drop before someone realizes there is something wrong with this picture?
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