Feature photo by sappymoosetree. Above photo bywilderdom
Parents find the new Where the Wild Things Are film to be too frightening for their children. I plan to take my daughter anyway, and here’s why.
In a recent Newseek interview, Maurice Sendak tells anyone who thinks the new Wild Things movie to be too wild to just go straight to hell.
I applaud him.
Just as I applaud him for fighting the original publishing house who wanted the soup waiting in Max’s bedroom to be warm instead of still hot.
I tried to convey how dopey “warm” sounded. Unemotional. Undramatic. Everything about that book is “hot.”
It makes me crazy to think anyone would seek to neuter this wonderful book by telling us life shouldn’t be hot, dangerous, shouldn’t be something that maybe, just maybe might force us to stand close to the edge look down over the abyss and think, “Oh, shit. This is huge.”
Where The Wild Things Are terrified me as a child. It took years before I could hear it all in one sitting. Yet I still came back to it, time and time again, until I fell in love with it. Now, when I read it to my daughter, I read as much for myself as for her.
Skipping forward almost fifty years, it seems the same fight surfaces with the film as parents worry our children will be too frightened by it.
I see this too often.
In the playground: Parents hover over their children, interrupt when they fight instead of allowing these young people to develop methods of their own for coping with conflict. I see it when I hear adults complain of the endless routine in their lives, but they are scared of what lies beyond what they already know. Thus, these same complainers stay unhappy when they could travel, find a new job, develop a new project, join a skydiving group or just try something to push the edges of comfort, even a little.
Photo by myradphotos
I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s certainly no more difficult than staying in one place, bored and unhappy.
H.G. Well’s Time Machine depicts a world in which humans follow this culture of fear to its (possibly) logical conclusion.
Are we to become the Eloi, a bunch of simpering weak beings who live only to escape death at the hands of the Morlocks, a band of menacing underground dwellers? They don’t go out at night, constantly look over their shoulders, and wait for death as the ground might swallow them whole.
Is that really what we want to be?
I can certainly understand the desire to provide stability for your children. They need family, a home, a place where they can feel secure while they explore the ever growing world around them. At a certain point, though, the safe world stops allowing for the same level of growth.
That’s when we need to branch out to find bigger playgrounds for exploration.
Take your children to the movies.
If it’s really too much for them, believe me, they’ll let you know, and you can leave, but at least you have given them the opportunity to stretch their own boundaries and choose.
COMMUNITY CONNECTION: What ways have you pushed your own boundaries? Would you suggest it to others? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
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The only thing that terrified me about this book is that Max (called “a monster” by his own mother), is sent to his room without eating his dinner, as a punishment…The combo “time out + no dinner” sounds scary to me. It’s a way of parenting that should be sent to Monsterland and stay there for ever!
I don’t necessarily agree that going to the movies is the best way for young kids to explore their emotions. Specially with today’s movies, so fast and loud for their developing senses.
As you have pointed out, real life can be full of emotions, negative and positive, if we the parents live an adventurous life, and specially if we share our feelings and talk about our own emotions with our kids.
Thanks for this powerful article!↵ -
I agree, Laura. Movies aren’t the only or best way to teach children about fear, adventure or any other emotion. It’s more the idea of keeping people away from a movie made specifically for children because they’re afraid of being afraid.
We parents are always placed in the position of making decisions for our children that later in life they will make for themselves. Going to a scary movie is one of those choices. My main point is that our kids can make the decision for themselves — even at a very young age — but that decision making process is too easily subverted by parental fears that may not be justified.
Whatever the case, thank you for your comment, Laura. I am quite a fan of your website as well.
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Wonderful thoughts, Leigh! I love this line: “I see it when I hear adults complain of the endless routine in their lives, but they are scared of what lies beyond what they already know.”
Book censorship/banning, particularly with children’s books, strikes a big nerve with me. Same with movies. The warm/hot debate is ridiculous in the extreme.
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Leigh, I applaud thee. Great piece!
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I too have heard the movie is traumatizing children and scaring them, although I have not yet heard an explanation of why. The content? The meaning? The cinematography?
When I was little, I thought “Where the Wild Things Are” was boring. When I read it to my daughter, I thought it was one of the loveliest pieces of prose ever. We haven’t seen the movie yet, but we probably will see it as a family.
I find it fascinating what is scary to any given person. The book doesn’t bother my daughter at all. On the other hand, she burst into hysterics in “Benji” when the bad guy kicks a dog, and we had to leave “March of the Penguins,” carrying a screaming, hysterical child, when the baby birds were threatened by sea eagles. The comedy “Shaun of the Dead” gave me nightmares.
That is to say that all of us have our own wild things, don’t we? It’s scary to watch someone else confront theirs, whether it’s a child or spouse or friend. Maybe that’s why parents are worried about the film.
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Hey there Cheap,
Most definitely. We all define fear differently. Personally, I don’t like scary movies. Never went to see any of the Saws or Hostel, though I have friends who love them. And yes, I also once had to carry Lila out of a movie screaming. Oddly, that was A Bug’s Life. Yet she loves the Harry Potter movies.
It’s very difficult for us to define for someone else what frightening will be. As parents, we can only be there to support and help out when necessary and even there, it’s a fine line to walk. That’s also the reason why I don’t want to define fear for Lila based on my own.
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This thread reminds me of the movie “Away we go” (Sam Mendes, 2009). One of the characters, a father, shows his children (he has many children: infants, toddlers, teenagers) a light version of The Sounds of Music (a movie not made for children). For that family, the movie ends with the “So long, farewell”. The father says his children will have time to learn about the Nazis later…:)
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I really liked this article, Leigh, and I totally agree with you – the safe world definitely inhibits growth at some level. As a teacher, I see both the overprotective and the not-very-involved-at-all parents.
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