Common Sense Media

Take a look at any of the Porky's movies or revisit cult classic Animal House and you'll see that crudeness in movies is not a new thing. I guess as a parent, I am beginning to notice every curse word, crude joke and potty humor in movies and television shows. Sometimes it's obvious that a movie is going to be crude, but other times it's unexpected. Everyone seems to know that Bridesmaids had a lot of crude humor, Friends with Benefits kind of gives it away in the title, but not all movies come with fair warning.

Even children's movies are not safe from adult humor. I was shocked by a scene in Madagascar 2 featuring a very sexual exchange between two hippos. And I didn't even have kids of my own at that point!


 Now as a parent I need to be careful about what my daughter sees and hears. She repeats everything. Honestly, I don't want my kid walking around talking about butts and repeating sexual innuendo.

The most effective way to avoid this would be to sell our televisions and place our daughter in a tower (making sure to keep her hair CUT!!!) to be sure that she was never, ever exposed to this raunchy world that we live in. Many people are actually doing this. We're being told to limit or completely cut our kids off from tv and video games. We're told that television viewing is bad for their health, discourages family time and teaches our children bad values. A friend of mine just enrolled her son into a charter school that tells kids and parents they need to shut down all devices for weeks at a time and report back about their experiences.

I think it's great that so many families are cutting the cord and spending more time together as a family. Really, it's wonderful. However, there are the rest of us who enjoy watching television. But we're still concerned about what our children see and hear.

Ready for my plug? Oh come on, this is a review blog, so you had to know I was fixing to plug something. Sheesh!

Anyway, when I want to watch something while my daughter is awake or we want to watch a movie as a family, I rely on Common Sense Media to help me out. I use their search engine to find the movie of choice and they then tell me everything I need to know about the movie regarding sex, language (even the word butt), violence, role models, etc. Seriously, everything I want to know before viewing with my daughter.

So if you're one of those parents that took their kids on opening weekend to see Cars 2 and got upset about the violence, this website is for you. Find out before you go if a movie is right for your family. Different things bother different people. Some families would think the scene I embedded from Madagascar 2 was funny and that it isn't inappropriate or that the violence in Cars 2 was tame, but other families might be offended or their kids would get scared. Whatever, it's a great website that I highly recommend!