What should kids be allowed to see at what ages? How did your parents handle it? How do you handle it with your kids? What limits were set? What were the effects? If you had to do it over again what would you change?
It depends, really. Nudity such as is shown in Shindler’s list is done so in a tasteful educational sense. Young teens educating themselves on the topic of WWII and the camps should be able to see this, though the couple times it was on tv, it was on late at night because of nudity and violence.
I don’t think that cable tv (as this is almost a non issue with broadcast tv, with the exception of a breast in E.R. or something like that) should be showing pornography at 3 in the afternoon, but something that has nudity in it should first be evaluated on the basis of its taste, allowing more programs that show nudity tastefully to share their art with the world.
I’d say don’t run around in fear that little Billy will see a boob… It’ll happen, it would be unnormal, and unnatural, to keep all nudity, tasteless or not, away from children old enough to handle it. Don’t leave playboy’s around for 8 year old Billy, but don’t flip out on him when he’s 13 and you find one under his bed. REMEMBER BACK TO WHAT 13 WAS LIKE FOR YOU.
I can’t remember how my parents really delt with it, I’m sure they knew I saw pornography in my young teen years… Isn’t it expected?
Depends on the context. To be appropriate for anyone, nudity should be:
- important for the plot, character development or setting of the show,
- not violent,
- not exploitive,
- not irresponsible
I know these are all vague and open to interpretation. I find a lot of things much more offensive, especially for youngsters, than nudity. The snickering, degrading, exploiting and violent subtexts of much that is in public view is disgraceful and disgusting.
Shindler’s List, of course, is inappropriate for very young children for reasons that have nothing to do with nudity.
I have a relatively narrow definition of “important for the plot,” etc. Quite often the exact same point can be achieved, sometimes even better, without gratuitous sex or nudity. The same criteria should be applied to graphic violence.
Oldsters among us may recall that there was a movie version of Romeo & Juliet decades ago in which the star-crossed lovers were portrayed as young teenagers (matching well with the Bard’s actual mention of Juliet’s age). On the morning after their secret wedding, the film gave a brief glimpse of J’s breast, and of Romeo’s naked backside as he walked to the window. The film was rated, IIRC, “R.” Supposedly it would have somehow damaged the moral development of teens and children to see that a young married couple were naked. Ridiculous.
My children are 8 and 6.
I have no problem with my kids seeing nudity in films that’s not gratuitous. The nude swimming scenes in Iris would be an excellent example. Other aspects of the film, such as Murdoch’s sexuality and promiscuity I’m a little less comfortable with, but they probably wouldn’t be that interested anyway. We are much more restrictive about violence, although lately that’s been sliding with my son and cartoons. Hopefully we’ve discussed with him enough of what’s real and make believe that he can differentiate the two, but violence still worries me a lot more than nudity. It’s obsession with nudity that’s harmful, not nudity itself.
This is how I feel, too. For instance, when my 10 year old and I saw the “wardrobe malfunction” on the Superbowl halftime show, I was shocked and offended - not by the glimpse of a breast, but by the implied violence towards a woman.
I’m hard-pressed to think of many instances of appropriate nudity on TV or in movies, just because most of it is linked closely to inappropriate behavior. I’d be fine with my kids seeing a show that includes nudity in an appropriate context. For my now 11-year-old, that would mean a medical setting or something like bathing or swimming, and for my 14-year-old, I’d be okay with it in settings like the aforementioned scenes in Schindler’s List or Romeo and Juliet.
Y’all should start watching French family movies. 
Nudity isn’t something the french are ashamed of - some of the great classics of “Family literature” put on the big screen/tv screen have the odd moment where mom is coming out of the tub, and gasp is nekkid, or getting dressed in the morning, or getting out of bed, nude. No one really thinks twice about it.
shrug I guess it all depends on context, to me. In the movies mentionned above, the nudity has no sexual connotation. Maybe that’s what we ought to keep in mind: the difference lies between the sexual content (linked to the nudity) and the “every day life” content…
Elly
I’ve never had a problem with nudity at any age of my children’s growth (now adults). They saw many many foreign films with us growing up.
But I abhor violence and gore. They were not allowed to play with children who had toy guns (or later bb guns and real guns).
My parents never had a problem with my brother and I seeing movies with nudity. There is really no issue with it. It is our bodies, and everyone has this and that. Socitiy today is shunning nudity in every way. When Titanic came out, there were a lot of parents that forbid their kids to see the movie, because of the nude scene. It is a very good film, and a great story, and many kids couldn’t expirence it because of that “dirty” scene. People these days!
Wow. I feel old.
The 1968 Zeffirelli version is the one to which you’re referring. I remember watching it in 9th grade English class over the course of a few days, and the teacher did have the good sense to avoid friction by telling students that there was going to be nudity at the beginning of the day’s viewing, and if their parents were going to be upset knowing that, they could go get a drink of water. Needless to say, nobody left the room, and plenty giggled over Romeo’s scrawny bum.
Ridiculous indeed. But for 1968 middle america, a 17 year old actress playing Juliet (nevermind that the character is, IIRC, 14) and 18 year old Romeo may have been too much to have the suggestion of sex outside of a legitimately church-sanctioned marraige.
For the moment, I think all this sort of censoring (and incense over things like Ms. Jackson’s slip) is absolutely absurd. A relic of a puritanical order that needs to just fade away. I’ll pull 180 once I’m a father, I’m sure. I’ll be on the boards, ranting about the filthiness of a tasteless slip of nipple on network television scarring my children forever. But I’d be the type of moralistic tightass I hate. I hope I have better sense than that. I’d like to imagine the trick is to make sure that things are understood. Context certainly matters, and openly being able to talk about nudity matters too.
My family really didn’t care. My dad’s attitude was “If it bothers you, you can leave the room” and I did a time or two for scary stuff, but not nudity. Never bothered me and I haven’t killed anyone yet.
Thanks for all the thoughtful responses. It seems that there is somewhat of a concensus that tasteful stuff is OK.
Let me ask a slightly more focused question: At what age would you allow kids to view The Sopranos.
As far as The Sopranos goes, my child (I don’t have one) would have to be old enough in my estimation to actually understand the different plots on the show. Sometimes I miss parts of the narrative, and I think I’m a more or less sophisticated and intelligent viewer. Language is probably more of an issue with a child viewing The Sopranos than sex, nudity, and violence, IMO.
I wouldn’t allow my eleven year old to watch The Sopranos, because he’d constantly interrupt to ask for explanations and if he isn’t mature enough to get it, then he’s not old enough to watch.
I censored a lot when he was very young, a lot of his peers seemed to have zero restrictions on what they watched/listened to and it used to horrify me. He’s utterly thrilled now at eleven that I occasionally allow a PG-13 movie, depending on what it is. On the other hand, while I like his taste in music so far, I’ve still got to be the heavy there, he likes a lot of hard-core stuff that’s still a bit old for him. I don’t freak out if there’s something vaguely inappropriate on the radio, but I do control what he buys.
My parents didn’t have to monitor quite as much, we didn’t have cable in my area until I was already a teenager, at least 14. I remember my mother locking out Mtv at first, though.
I want to buy “Love Actually” when it comes out. I didn’t take my daughter to see it because of the rating. If they had left out the porno movie subtext I think it would have been rated PG-13. But I explained it to her so I’ll probably let her see it when I get the movie. This week I took her to see an R-rated movie (Eternal Sunshine…) which was okay, really. I’m not sure why it was rated R.
We actually took a field trip to see Romeo & Juliet when it was in the theater. I can’t remember what grade I was in–probably 8th or 9th.
See this one’s a bit wierd for me. I used to watch this film about a pair of lesbian vampires when I was eight. I absolutely loved the film - but the gratuitous sex was all indirect. I absolutely loved and gobbled up the horror genre when I was young, and so whenever my parents saw me watching these films they knew it was my love of horror stories in general that kept me hooked.
But now I think of it, yeah it was wierd that I enjoyed watching the Dracula-ess drain blood from a sprightly-bosoomed female, while she slowly writhed in agony/exctasy. My parents still mention that film (which goes by the name of “teeth” - not the movie name, but to signify that vampires were involved).
I lost that film (I had it taped) but it came on TV a few years back, and I was shocked at the level of sexual content involved.
Still I don’t think I’d be too distressed if my kid watched the same thing. It gave me a healthy sexual appetite, and one which if an attempt was made to repress it (I was always very naturally curious about sex), I’d probably have ended up doing weird shit to pass the time.