My problem with Sex and the City isn’t that it is ‘naughty’. Who cares about that? It’s that the characters are people I wouldn’t want an 8 year old emulating in any way. Like someone said, they are only symphathetic because they are fictional. If they were real, I’d imagine most people would despise them (or should, IMO).
Bingo.
This is basically the problem with even sitcom characters today and even some cartoons.
“Today”? As opposed to what? Wholesome characters like Al Bundy 15 years ago? Archie Bunker 30 years ago?
There is the vast majority of us who realize, and realized even as kids that these characters are fictional. Then there is the extreme minority who are off in LaLa Land with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. As I said earlier, if you’re part of the latter group, you’re pretty much screwed whether you watch The Sopranos or The Teletubbies.
I mean, who blames The Beatles for Charlie Manson’s crazy ideas?
Or nothing at all for that matter. I doubt Ted Kaszinsky watched much TV, but guess what would be getting the blame if he had been holed up in his cabin playing Grand Theft Auto?
Archie was before my time and I never watched MWC.
And every parent knows (do you have kids, btw?) that kids imitate EVERYTHING they see: parents, friends, other family members, athletes, movie stars, sitcoms, etc. Those little brains can only be molded for a short period of time. If your kid is going to emulate what they see, doesn’t it make sense to keep them from being exposed to TV characters that you’d be horrified to see them imitate … not only now, but as an adult?
There used to be lots of positive characters on sitcoms. Growing up I had Claire Huxtable, who actually loved her husband, had a big career and managed to raise 5 great kids as well. Girls need to see that they have choices and can do whatever they put their mind to, right? Remember Just the Ten of Us? The mom (who stayed at home) had 8 kids and was actually HAPPY!
Today we have Patricia Heaton telling Raymond every week what a POS he is and whining about how haaaaaaard her life is. In fact, I can’t name one primetime sitcom character I’d want my kid imitating.
As far as SITC goes, I can’t think of any parents I personally know who are praying that their daughter grows up to be like (insert SITC character here). It may very well be a good show, but not for an 8 year old girl who is just starting to form her impressions of what it is to be a woman, how women should conduct themselves, etc.
I love the confident comments from posters declaring “I’ve never had an eight year old daughter, but I know how one should be raised”. Such naivety may be romantic in your reading circles, but in real life, decent parents put limits on what their children experience and act out. And when parents can’t or won’t channel their children’s lives appropriately, others in the community will do it for them.
What do you suppose the outcome will be when roger thornhill’s daughter discusses or attempts to act out some of her new-found knowledge with her second-grade classmates?
To quote Stewie from a recent episode of Family Guy.
Bow chicka wow wow.
I watched a lot of Warner Brothers cartoons as a child, and yet I’ve managed to maintain a healthy respect for the laws of physics. And if roger continues to discuss the show with his daughter, she’ll be able to view the fictional aspects of the show with some perspective. Face it, people from around the world grow up with vastly different exposures to sexual things, and, short of abusive experiences where sex is FORCED on a child (and that’s NOT what is happening here), the vast majority of us grow up fine and socially functional.
Also, I played a lot of Wolfenstein 3-D (they don’t make first-person shooters like that anymore, huh?) when I was roger’s daughter’s age, and I didn’t shoot up any of my classmates, and I don’t remember ever starting a violent confrontation in my youth, adolescence, or now. I do still hate Nazis, though. These types of things have more to do with values taught by parents than the entertainment they let their children consume.
Well, monkey see, monkey do I guess. I always thought of tv as an occasional source of entertainment. Absolutely never as a role-model.
Is this a joke? Hello, she’s EIGHT!!!
Why is everyone assuming that if you don’t let your kid watch SATC you’re a censorship-loving control freak? Have we lost all sense of proportion and moderation in our society? Oh my god, it’s either let it all hang out or cover it all up! No happy mediums?
SATC is pretty heavy for an eight year old. For godsakes, people it’s not about nudity, it’s not about kids being stupid, it’s about it being age appropriate!!!
I wouldn’t let an 8 year old watch Schindler’s List, either. When my sister was 11 and wanted to read Stephen King’s IT, my mother asked me my opinion, which was that she should wait a few years.
Yes, tell them how babies are made. Tell them that some people are gay, some are straight, some are bi. But I don’t think we bring out the detailed diagram charts on Fisting 101 to get the information across!
Perspective, people.
My 12 year old is just beginning to understand the nuances of adult humor. Absent a laugh track, I don’t think an 8 year old is sophisticated enough to understand the comedy in SATC. For one thing, she (I hope) has zero sexual experiences or romantic interpersonal relationships to draw on; and b) is too young to appreciate the fact that comedy can sometimes be delivered with a straight face.
Let’s consider the famous “Gherkin” episode.
In order to understand and appreciate the comedy behind the “gherkin” episode, you have to:
a) Understand basic human anatomy and how intercourse works.
b) Understand, at least in theory, the connection between a man’s penis size and a woman’s sexual satisfaction.
c) You have to know what a “gherkin” is and how big it is compared to other pickles.
d) You have to make the connection that when Samantha is talking about pickles, she is really talking about her lover’s penis size. She doesn’t come right out and say, “Let me compare my lover’s penis to a pickle.”
e) It helps if you’ve been involved in a relationship, or can appreciate the dynamics of a relationship, where your lover has a lot of qualities that you love, but you just can’t get over (his baldness, his hairy ass, her cavernous vagina).
My 8 year old daughter wouldn’t have had the perspective to understand any of the nuances that make it comedic. That is a good thing. I doubt your daughter does either. If it’s her “favorite” show, then she probably just enjoys the fact that dad is watching a show with her and paying attention to her.
Some people, whether by design (or as a self-defense mechanism), have absolutely no memory of what it’s like to be 8 (VIII, acht, huit, ocho) years old.
Some parents, whether by design (or as a way of living vicariously through their kids), push their children (scholastically and socially) to be more mature than they really are.
Cisco wrote
That, my friend – and please don’t take this as uppity – is because you’ve never had an eight-year old child.
Having been eight once in your life and being responsible for an eight-year old are two completely different experiences. And again, not to be uppity, but you won’t really appreciate that until you’ve experienced it.
Young children are sponges. That’s their job. They suck in everything, live it and emulate it. When they see a movie, they are one of the characters. It’s not a seperate world that they go to for entertainment then return to the real world. They are what they experience. That’s their job; they’re kids; they’re supposed to be learning how the world works.
I can’t in my wildest, most liberal visions imagine what the OP is doing can be considered anything less than irresponsible. I’ll flat out say that were we neighbors, there is no way I’d let my children in his house, and I’d make sure the other neighborhood parents knew that children in his house are exposed to pornography with his knowledge and blessing.
And to go a step further, if I noticed concerning behavior by Mr. Thornhill’s daughter, I’d notify the authorities.
I’m sure roger thornhill is fine in many ways, but this is not one of them.
I’m still hoping this is a bad joke.
Every single person I know that was raised like that is now a total television addict because they never learned to moderate it early in life. For them, television will always be a forbidden pleasure that you want to do whenever you can, rather than part of life to be enjoyed for it’s own sake.
And remember folks, this is taking place in Hong Kong. Sexual attitudes can be very different in different parts of the world.
Anyway, I think one of the biggest problems facing adolescent girls is that they don’t know enough about their sexuality. Boy masterbate, enjoy locker-room talk and pornography. But girls don’t really have anything like that. And then when it comes time to have sex, they don’t know what the heck is going on.
About TEN PERCENT of women have never experienced an orgasm -ever, in their lives. Fully half of women do not regularly reach orgasm. I am sure the numbers are much more disturbing for sexually active teenage girls. Girls never get a chance to play with their sexual responses, learn what they enjoy and how to get that, how to communicate about sex and how to enjoy themselves. Girls suffer more guilt, more shame, more fear and more misunderstanding about sex and masterbation than boys.
Not only does this mean that many women miss out on a great part of being human, but not knowing about sex and sexual responses puts women in danger. When a teen girl is with a guy and feels sexual feelings that she is not familar or comfortable with, she is going to feel this rush of strange feelings that she doesn’t know what to do with, and probably won’t make the most reasonable decision. Sexual ignorance places women is spots where they are not in control of the situation, they do not know how to communicate what they want to happen and what they don’t want to happen, and opens the door for them to be taken advantage of and have negative experiences.
You say that like you think it’s a good thing.
It’s pretty nigh impossible to know what might mess up a child. When I was growing up, the only sex in TV and movies was in the context of violence. Films with consensual, loving, fun sex were Adults Only, XXX (and usually French).
But plenty of westerns and dramas had women being raped or forced into relationships. The rapes were off screen, of course, but you knew what was happening.
It left me with the belief that sex = being overpowered, and this lasted for most of my adult life.
I would much rather have been exposed to the tolerant, balanced view of sex in Sex and the City.
Yeah, come to think of it, I saw Wayne’s World when I was eight, and I didn’t really get any of it, but found it hilarious nonetheless. I should probably watch it again to figure out what it was really about.
I note that my post has raised a lot of comment, so I’ll give a bit more background and address some of the questions and comments raised. First of all, our daughter actually began watching SATC when she was seven, when we got the first series on VCD. She likes to watch things with us, and if she doesn’t like it (like The Sopranos), she’ll read a book, talk with our helper in her room, or do something else. The violent aspects of The Sopranos did concern my wife and me, but our daughter worked that out for herself without having to be told she was forbidden to watch this with Mum and Dad.
To address points made about SATC specifically, the fictional nature of the characters is something which she can appreciate, just as she can figure out that Bubbles (I think that’s her favourite) wasn’t really accidentally created when the Professor added Ingredient X to the test tube. She’s a great fan of Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller, but is quite aware that they play roles. I have to disagree that kids (any kids - not just my one) are sponges, imitating what the see. They love playing, and they love playing roles. They recognise good roles when they see them.
Thus, in SATC, the slut (as I call Samantha) is a role that my girl is able to recognise, but would not necessarily want to emulate. As I have said, the bedroom antics bore her. When Samantha got breast cancer and her man shaved his head in solidarity with her, I think she was able to see Samantha as more human. I wouldn’t recommend all 8 year olds be forced to watch this to gain a crash course in relationships, but it seems to work for her.
As for the chance that she will discuss the show with her classmates, I asked her about this once and got a withering Lizzie McGuire look for my pains. She knows that wouldn’t be appropriate. As for whether it’s appropriate for 7/8 year old girls to watch a show like SATC with their parents (or cousins), I really think it depends on the individual circumstances. I certainly wouldn’t make it mandatory!
Since we don’t get HBO and I’ve only seen an episode once of SatC, I can’t specifically comment. I also don’t propose to hold much of an opinion over folks who actually have children, since I do not and never plan to.
With that out of the way, I hope I remember some of how I was as a kid. I was particularly fascinated with Donna Summer’s Bad Girls LP (remember those?!?) that came out while I was in, I think, the fourth grade. That wouldn’t put me that much older than roger’s daughter. And you know what? I LOVED their clothes on the jacket! When we had a talent show that year, I naively suggested singing one of the songs off it dressed in full regalia. Of course, that wasn’t an option. But I did know, distinctly, that would have been (if possible) only for dress-up and not something a kid did or wore at all in public. Especially you wouldn’t behave like it’s normal.
I saw tons of violence with no problem throughout the mid to late 70s, both in movies, TV shows and cartoons. No one seemed to care. I saw the occasional simulated sex act, and since I’d had the birds and bees discussed with me very young, that held almost no interest for me either. I didn’t find a lot of that stuff glamorized like my contemporaries, nor would I hide “naughty” things under my bed, at the back of my closet, whatever. If I was curious, all I had to do was either ask or peruse the family copy of The Joys of Sex. Meh.
Last of all, I read so many Judy Blume books it wasn’t funny, almost exclusively in grade school. Where else do you think I got the idea I should already check out that masturbation thing? 
And those are ‘age appropriate’ and within context for a pre-teen, etc. However, I learned more in-depth from that than anything considered “adult.” I hit Stephen King right before junior high. The only thing that held for me was scariness and ick! value. I loved it!
So, considering all of the above, I waited to have my first drink after I was legal, have never dressed like any of the aforementioned people in my life (well, there was this one time…) and have only slept with 3 men ever. Don’t know what that says about me and my upbringing. Those folks who’s parents did just the opposite were usually the kids attending keggers in high school, tried substances they shouldn’t even younger and knew a hell of a lot more than simple oral sex at 20. Matter of fact, those were typically the same students who snickered during all of our school outings to see things like the Pompeii exhibit. Just sayin’ is all.
If I did end up raising a child, I’d want to take things like this (again, I have no real knowledge of SatC) and use it as a positive tool for jumping off discussions and insuring them that they could always come to me. YMMV obviously.
I suppose it’s too much to hope they all grow up healthy, happy and intelligent? I will keep my fingers though.