Well, yeah, but most of the original Grimm’s tales also weren’t specifically for kids. They were stories that the adults would tell to each other that kids could listen in on.
True enough; but generally speaking, most of the best “children’s stories” are stories that would appeal to adults and children alike, on some level. Stories that are written only to appeal to children tend not to be as memorable (as well as being a more modern thing).
I’m surprised no one has mentioned The Wizard of Oz. That is one scary ass movie for kids. Now some might argue it isn’t a kids movie, but I don’t think I believe that.
Little Nemo freaked me out as a kid. It also seems to give off the message that if you’re an adventurous kid, if you don’t follow every order given to you by an authority figure you and everyone you care about will die.
Syndrome made that sneer to two people and two people only: Mr. Incredible and Syndrome’s own girlfriend. He made no promises to any masses.
One gets the sense Smash didn’t actually watch the whole movie. He certainly missed the last five minutes.
The end of the movie - like, to be honest, 99% of movies - celebrates BALANCE, not extremism. At the movie’s conclusion, we see Dash lose a race on purpose, deliberately not doing as well as he could so others can succeed. That’s precisely the opposite of what Ayn Rand would admire.
The movie begins with superheroes being what SmashTheState hates; Olympian champions, worshipped by the people. But then they are brought low in a sort of Harrison Bergeron type plot; they do not use their powers to make themselves famous and worshipped, but nor are they allowed to use their powers to help people. At the movie’s conclusion, balance has been restored; the Parr family does not use their superpowers to dominate and enrich themselves. Instead, they use them when it helps society to do so.
Syndrome, by contrast, WAS John Galt, or as close as it got in that movie. He was a great genius who used his remarkable powers of invention solely for profit, profit he made through violence and war profiteering.
I wonder if we read the same version. But I recall that it was the Sheriff of Nottingham’s daughter or something. Definitely an evil character helped Robin on his way.
All this talk of Randian whatsits has made me glad I could never get past the first chapter of Atlas Shrugged. It seems it got even boring-er.
My BF and I recently watched Coraline, he kept asking if it was supposed to be aimed at kids. I thought it was meant to be aimed at older kids and adults. I wonder how many little kids may have been taken to that movie by their parents and been traumatized for life?
Yeah, the one I read there was some kind of baddy in on the medical care, and the over-letting of blood was a deliberate effort to kill him. That was what got to me; the idea of him trusting someone to make him better, while all the time they were killing him. I’m sure it has something to do with my less-than-trusting feelings towards doctors!
Bridge to Terabithia.
I saw it when I was 39 years old, and still think of it as the movie that destroyed my childhood.
And you’re thinking that’s something Galt would have done?
Well, it was rated PG, which should have let parents know that it wasn’t intended for very young children. But Coraline, like several other movies named in this thread, struck me as the type of movie that’s far more disturbing for adults than it would be for kids. I think as a kid I would have just accepted that there was a monster in the movie who made herself look like the mothers of children in order to trick them. That’s scary, but not unusually or traumatically so.
As an adult I find it all much creepier and more disturbing, but that’s largely because I recognize the Other Mother as an archetypical “devouring mother” and associate her with other mothers (both real and fictional) who on some level or another try to trap or destroy their own children. But I don’t think a child would get that from it at all – how many children are familiar with the works of Carl Jung?
I am wondering the same thing. My brother actually wrote in the book (a big no-no in our house) just before the final chapter, not to read past this point, as it was too tragic. I remember it as a woman who had been in love with him and he’d ignored her. She joined a nunnery, then eventually got her opportunity for revenge.
First, it’s Grimm, not Grim - it’s a German surname, not related to the english meaning.
Second, the Grimm collection of fairy-tales was heavily edited by the Grimms to make the stories “suitable” for children. (They also collected different versions of similar fairy-tales and edited them together into one version). A lot of mothers were changed into step-mothers to explain why they hated their daughters/ children so much, for example.
When I read the English fairy-tales as grown-up, they seemed much more bloodthirsty than the Grimm stories - every witch and giant of course ate children/ English men there, without exception, while the Grimm stories had good and bad witches, good fairy godmothers and dumb giants.
Thirdly, as child psychologist Bruno Bettelheimexplained in his book “Kinder brauchen Märchen” (children need fairytales),
If you want depressing fairytales, then look at Hans Christian Andersen. But his fairytales were modern, designed to have a sad ending, not intended for children.
It depends on the book and the child. And a very important point, I think, is that books shouldn’t be read alone by small children - just like children shouldn’t watch TV alone.
My mother read Karl May’s Winnetou books to me when I was just starting school (age 6), although they are in the age group of 12 and above at the libraries. But because she read them to me, instead of me reading them alone (as I did later), she could explain the background, and watch my reaction.
Similar, if children watch TV alone, they have a harder time coping than watching a DVD with the parents, and stopping to discus things whenever it gets difficult.
I think that’s the Rosemary Sutcliff version - a continuous story from little chapters on their own.
However, the way I remember it (without a copy to look it up), the Head Nun/Abbot was a relative of Robin, but in the pay/ alliance of the bad guys (either the Sheriff or the King-imposter) and let Robin bleed to Death on purpose - although bloodletting was an accepted medical technique at that time, she just opened up his veins and walked away, knowing he would bleed.
Robin awoke and realizing what was going on, rallied his last strength to shoot an arrow out of the window, and his friends waiting outside rushed in.
In my book it definitely wasn’t deliberate, just a random nurse in a nunnery, but was just via the ignorant practices of the times. I would have been fine if there was some “evil” element to blame, but the lack of this is what left me screwed up.
If you really want to mess up kids with German stories, read them the Struwwelpeter. 
http://www.fln.vcu.edu/struwwel/struwwel.html
My favourite is little suck-a-thumb. Perfect for toddlers!
http://www.fln.vcu.edu/struwwel/daumen_e.html
Child psychologists must have a field-day with that one … the mother’s ready sympathy for the kid’s mutilation is the best part!
Transformers- the cartoon movie, had some rather disturbing elements; Optimus Prime gets Martyred in the first act of the film, and several other autobots get mercilessly slaughtered while a critically wounded(damaged?) Megatron gets upgraded in a faustian deal with a planet-eating Unicron. Also, while kids may not get it, I thought the Battle of Autobot City was pretty messed up on behalf of the Autobots. Think about it this way: They need energon to help launch their offensive to liberate Cybertron, so they have Autobot City to protect their assets on earth/establish a presence there. Since the Decepticons know this, they lay seige to Autobot city, dragging the whole cybertron war thing to our backyard.
I had heard that people had such a strong reaction to them killing off Optimus Prime that Hasbro decided not to make the GI Joe and My Little Pony movies feature films and instead make them 5-episode story arcs.
The GI Joe movie also had some pretty disturbing imagery; I remembered getting pretty freaked out about what had happened to Cobra Commander and watching him slowly metamorphasize back into a snake “I was once a man!”
I’ve heard that line before, and it is very true. I guess it’s a good rule of thumb as to whether any particular film or book is suitable for any particular child. Like, say, a film where major character death occurs is only really suitable for kids who have some concept of death - either most kids over, say, 6, or perhaps younger kids who’ve had some close contact with death (parent or sibling, maybe).
Then the kids aren’t taught that you can defeat death, of course, but that you can learn to cope with it and move on, and that it’s OK to feel sad and angry and guilty and so on. Very useful.
But the parents really do need to know whether such a theme is a major part of the film so that they can delay its viewing till later if necessary. We considered Bridge to Terabithia for my daughter’s birthday - her and half a dozen classmates at the cinema - and I’m so, so so glad we didn’t. It’s not fun birthday viewing.