Are kid's cartoons and movies protecting kids too much?

J

JAKEMAN

Stand User
From all the new cartoons and kids films that are coming out the topic of death has been phased out. I think that showing death in a cartoon shows children the real world.

Let's take a classic cartoon

The Animals of Farthing Wood

This cartoon dealt with death, and did not sugar coat it. Also look at Tom and Jerry editing the cartoon to take out the cigarettes and cigars because its a bad example for kids. The way I see it is that if a kid smokes they have done it by their choice, the mothers of the children who smoke put the blame on something else because all children are mindless drones.

It was quite funny when i was watching the spongebob movie i was surpised to hear the word died. I mean nearly any cartoon nowadays hide anything of the real world to create a false world because they dont want people to grow up.
 
Agreed i was looking up stuff on devil may cry where i came across a site that rates tv shows games etc.

Basically they thought the best games out there was bob the builder and stuff like that :shock:

Anything that even had smoking in had it put aginst it i mean showing extreme violence to kids not good put then there was silly things like women showing to much flesh...take a stroll to what half the mums where down the schools when picking there kids up.

Kid's need to know about death only so many pets can go on holiday and never come back.
 
I can understand smoking being removed (it's imitatable), but death should be covered more. They should at least say the word - I'm sure kids know about death at that age anyway.
 
Its usually the channels choice of what to show, some don't want anything negative. Look at naruto on Jetix no more blood.

Look at the series The A-Team loadsa guns but in all the series only one guy ever dies on screen and thats shown as a shadow through a window as a flash back during there trial.
 
Bambi's ancient. Just like Watership Down and the Animals of Farthing Wood it comes from a time when people weren't so close-minded about death being shown in front of children.

As for the A-Team, I'd say that it was like that because it was a peak-time family program, much the same as Diagnosis Murder et al.

Dumbing down of cartoons is likely why most children get into anime and adult-cartoons.
 
Some things are excessively censored while others should be censored more, but aren't. Maybe it's just me being out of step with current values in society, I dunno. I must admit films that would have been slapped with an 18 certificate years ago are getting away with a 15 these days...that issue would need a thread all to itself really!

I see it all boiling down to my own pet hate...political correctness. People act illogically just to stop causing offence to other people who never kenw there wasa problem to begin with. I think all you need is common sense! :p

Take Tom and Jerry or instance, supposedly a bad influence because of the violence...except it's been shown to kids for over 40 years! tbh, it shows a big animal attacking a smaller one and suffering for it accordingly...surely a good example to be setting to the youth of today?!
 
Watership Down was never a kids film, people just assumed it was because it was animation (being shown of Film4 at the moment, excellent). I think we can all relate to that.

It is quite surprising how much death there is in some cartoons. Even more common are children without parents, Lilo & Stitch is about an orphan.
 
Simple answer, yes. However its kids films in general. Look back at the 80's. Throw Willow, the never ending story or Labyrinth at them. That will sort it out in a jiffy. :D
 
I don't think that you can count not covering death in cartoons as political correctness here. Yes, years ago we may feel that it wasn't quite so sugar coated for kids as it is today, but times change. 40 years ago kids may have been more exposed to death, but nobody knew what sex was until they were 35. Today sex education starts at 3, or some age around about then. I think it's just a changing world we live in that dictates what is acceptable for children, not an increase in political correctness.

Why should children be exposed to death in any case? There seems to be an incredible focus today on growing up as quickly as humanly possible. I wouldn't be surprised if by 2020 kids attended school when they were 4, left when they were 6 and were only taught about sex, the internet and how to work their ipods. If kids need to learn some life lessons, it is not going to be through the TV and I think that's the way it should be.
 
watership down should of been watered down i think

ever since i saw the main 2 rabbits fight i had a fear of dieing till i was about 7 lol
 
Rabbits fighting each other owns. Watership down was amazing, though Tom and Jerry is being edited now because of all the cats smoking. >_>
 
Watership Down was always intended to be a children’s story, and the accompanying film was made and released with children in mind as a ‘U’ in the UK and ‘PG’ in the USA. Due to the uncensored violence and issues raised however, a lot of adults also found it to be satisfying at their reading level.

Watership Down is a good example of showing how modern cartoons don’t deal with death at the same level. Most cartoons use the rushed approach, whereby a character’s lost someone close to them but they find someone to act as a replacement a few minutes later. Others take a fantasy approach to the situation, such as in Casper (the film) where the characters that die come back instantly as happy ghosts, or the Lion King where Simba’s father comes back to give the kid advice There’s never an actual sense of loss, just the story that the death was used for.

Even in the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, which stars the Grim Reaper as a main character, no-one dies. The closest you get is:

“Grim, why do the good die young?â€
 
Moster House which came out earlier this year was pretty cool. Didn't shy away from the theme of death at least. (though I reckon it could've been scarier, though I still jumped a couple of times!)

I think things will improve over the next few years as people are kind of coming round to the idea that cartoons aren't just for kids.
 
ConcreteBadger said:
Take Tom and Jerry or instance, supposedly a bad influence because of the violence...except it's been shown to kids for over 40 years! tbh, it shows a big animal attacking a smaller one and suffering for it accordingly...surely a good example to be setting to the youth of today?!
Click to expand...

One of my favourite childhood cartoons is being ripped to shreds at the moment, because its "racist" (the black cleaner) and "violent" (a cat attacking a mouse...)

At the moment they are deleting all the smoking from them so they can be shown over here, or they're bring out new dvds, I forgot :S (and I do agree with the non-smoking thing but cutting it out of classics is too far)

There are limits for kids but I think they should concentrate on current cartoons instead of ripping our childhood classics apart.
 
They edited to two rednecks hanging themselves at the end of an episode of Ren and Stimpy on the supposed "uncut" DVD's for the UK release.
 
I remember going to see the Lion King when I was five, and a certain scene (I'm sure you've all seen the Lion King but I'd better not say just in case) really shocked me. Not in a nightmare-type way, but it certainly opened my eyes to a few things. That said, I can't say it had any negative effect on me. Overprotective parents pressurise these kinda things on companies, and they react with "suitable for all" junk.
And anyway, it seems all cartoons nowadays are crap, OTT, comedies that try to be witty and fail horrendously. If there's one kid's channel I watch at all, it's boomerang, because it shows OLDER SHOWS.
 
You're lucky, they are refusing to release Song Of The South in the US because it features black people doing, er, black people things, which is obviously racist ;-)

It's available just about everywhere else though.

They are only cutting the smoking from T&J so they can show it to kids TV, I'm sure you'll be able to get the uncut versions on DVD.
 
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