Is Firefly suitable for children?
POSTED BY: chronicthehedgehog
UPDATED: Thursday, August 17, 2006 05:12
VIEWED: 15214
PAGE 4 of 5
Quote:
Originally posted by Darkfly:
Prostitution,lesbianism,violence,sexual refrences, torture,swearing,swearing in chinese,sex scenes,ect.
If that's suitable for anybody under 11 then GOD help us all,this is why people are getting dumber, there allowed to see,watch,& hear things they should not be allowed to till they can completely understand.Look at the stats stealing,prostition, teenage pregenancies,murdering,worser grades in school,unemployment,ect. all these thing's are geeting higher every year,if you want the main culprit it's the parents(not completely)I was brought up with manner's,wasn't allowed to buy or watch anything I wanted,I was never allowed to watch an 18 till I was 15 & that was Terminator & even then my Dad wouldn't let me see the nude scene.And no I'm not 50 I'm actually between the age 16-23 but your never find out.
I am often quite amazed by the Puritanical bent that America still has. The big fuss over GTA wasnt the graphic depiction of death, violent assault, or, well, grand theft auto. No, it was about a hiden cheat that allowed the user to perform in vitual reality an act which YOUR mother and father performed at least once.
So, with that said, no, Firefly is not suitable for young children. Teens, certainly. Elementary school or earlier, no.
The reason
1. Prostitution: I'm on the fence with this one - Companions are less as Mal would have it, more like Giesha. Still, the women in Heart of Gold were persons who took monitary compensation in exchange for sexual relations - and thats hard to explain to someone very young. Better to leave that one in the Adult Situations column.
2. Lesbianism. Oh, how provincal! How very narrow minded. My son will not, at any age, find lesbians the least bit shocking, since by the time he will be old enough to know exactly what a lesbian is, he will have known quite a few. Welcome to the 21st century.
3. Violence/ torture. Heres the clear one. A child does not need to see graphic depictions of violence. He does not need to see people getting shot, tortured, or shoved into jet intakes (silly minor character). So, when daddy is playing Day of Defeat, the boy is sound asleep or at daycare. When he's not, I'm not playing DoD. So, he doesnt get to see FF until he's older.
4. Swearing. Thats a minor annoyance - children will hear all sorts of swearing from innumerable sources, and as long as its clear that no, you do NOT say that word, its not really that big of a deal.
5. Swearing in Chinese. Are you kidding. No, really, is that actually meant to be taken seriously?
6. Sex scenes/sexual references. Well, if we're talking the special Hell sex scene, theres a damn fine moral to be learned: Dont think with Mr. Happy. And theres the flashback where Kaylee is gettin' some with Serenity's first mechanic - thats hardly graphic. And once again, theres the sex scene in Heart of Gold, but you know, you start off with prostitutes, and, well, in for a penny in for a pound. Besides, one typically leads to the other. I think the point to be taken is that women are sexual beings too - I'm not going to raise my child to think that sex is filthy, because that implies that women are too, and I aint havin' that. His mom's a woman, after all.
"stealing,prostition, teenage pregenancies,murdering,worser grades in school,unemployment,ect."
I fail to see a direct correlation between TV and those things - I dont steal not because I was restricted from bad TV, but because I was raised with self esteme. I didnt knock up girls because I had good sexual education - Mr. Happy wore armor. My grades were lousy in highschool because I was ADHD before it was cool. That and a crappy attitude. Oh, and I'm lazy.
No, I think FF is too violent for kids, but thats pretty much the only thing that knocks it down.
"Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes." -Terry Pratchett "Night Watch"
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If you read one of my posts on this thread then you would have seen I said I just added Chinese swearing for fun,& as for the stealing,teenage pregancies,ect. I also said in one of my posts on this thread it only contribute's a tiny bit. Plus you don't have to take it seriously this forum is suppost to be for fun right,it's just I replied to somebody in another thread & well another person decided to make a whole thread out of my reply.
Remember go & vote for Firefly at imdb.com & if your not a member become a member.
Go to http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=19&t=22697 for more info!
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I think the reason it's perceived that sex is viewed as being worse than violence is because a lot of children won't understand what's happening. You show a fight and they understand exactly what's happening, you show two people having sex and they have no frame of reference for it.
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I do not kill with my hand.
He who kills with his hand has forgotten the face of his father.
I kill with my heart.
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I'm with Rugbug on this one. I'd let teens watch it, but not younger kids. There's sex and violence and torture and people getting their ears cut off and kids absorb things like that and have a habit of repeating them or describing them in great detail to the most innapropriate person at the most innapropriate time. It's a gift they have.
Heck, I'd even follow the same rule with anything after season three of Buffy and pretty much all of Angel.
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Quote:
Originally posted by DesktopHippie:
I'm with Rugbug on this one. I'd let teens watch it, but not younger kids. There's sex and violence and torture and people getting their ears cut off and kids absorb things like that and have a habit of repeating them or describing them in great detail to the most innapropriate person at the most innapropriate time. It's a gift they have.
Heck, I'd even follow the same rule with anything after season three of Buffy and pretty much all of Angel.
Who is Rugbug & Desktophippie I totally agree with what your saying cause I actually did orginally say in my first post about this that only under 11's should not watch it but again depends on the kid & the parent(s).
Go to http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=19&t=22697 for more info!
Things are about to get interesting...Define interesting...Oh GOD oh GOD we're all going to die.
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I'm of the mind of most people who've posted:
I wouldn't be comfortable w/ letting my kiddo watch it until she's 10 or 11, and I'd hold off on Serenity until she was 13 or so.
Great points re: Gargoyles and Justice League - they're fantastic, intelligent options for the under-10 set (if you'd like to introduce them to more adult-ish themes). And, heck, I'm 26 and'll watch both 
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Quote:
Originally posted by Darkfly:
If you read one of my posts on this thread then you would have seen I said I just added Chinese swearing for fun,& as for the stealing,teenage pregancies,ect. I also said in one of my posts on this thread it only contribute's a tiny bit. Plus you don't have to take it seriously this forum is suppost to be for fun right,it's just I replied to somebody in another thread & well another person decided to make a whole thread out of my reply.
B]
Well, theres two problems I have with this. First, I'm on dialup, and NetZero turns out to be incredibly slow loading pages here - so I dont actually have the time or inclination to scan every little detail of all the posts in this extremely active community.
So, #2, I go by what was said. Maybe what you said was taken out of context, but it sounded like a right-wing rant to me. Not, ha ha aint I wacky.
I'm also not 50, but this is a serious subject to me, because its not theory, its not an intellectual debate for philosophers - I need to decide now and maintain a consistant policy for what my child views on tv. I have to walk the excessivly narrow line between keeping my child safe from modern society, and preparing him for it. You post a joke, you say its a joke, otherwise, expect me to weigh in, and weigh in hard.
"Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes." -Terry Pratchett "Night Watch"
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I've got dial-up so I completely understand.As for making a joke I didn't mean my orginal post was an actual joke I just meant the Chinese swearing was put there to add to the things Firefly has in it. Maybe I should have taken more time thinking what I was talking about in my first post(I mean the quote which is used in this thread at the top) but I never knew it was going to be turned into a whole gorram thread.
Go to http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=19&t=22697 for more info!
Things are about to get interesting...Define interesting...Oh GOD oh GOD we're all going to die.
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It's highly dependent upon the maturity of the child, and a few other interesting situations too.
Anyone else grow up in the 1980s? I don't have a reference for kiddy shows today, but was wondering if anybody remembered cartoons such as Pole Position, Thundercats, Mysterious Cities of Gold and Defenders of the Earth. Those were solidly aimed at kids aged 7+ (call it 7-15 for the sake of argument) and contained what is by the standards of Teletubbies a lot of cartoonish violence. Yet many responsible parents I knew (my mother included) were happy for their kids to watch them. It's pretty much swings and roundabouts what children have been exposed to anyway, in national network kids' programming - all a factor of the times.
I would happily show a moderately intelligent child Firefly from the age of 8 upwards, with the exception of War Stories (for the torture scenes, I would point out, not the lesbianism - given the number of lesbian friends I have, my kids'd have to be pretty daft to not have an understanding of that). I didn't pick this age with a pin stuck into a chart - I was 8 when I read The Silmarillion and started learning to understand story violence and sympathetic character death. I would add that various child development studies have suggested that child intelligence is strongly linked to adult interactions in a child's early years, so if you want an intelligent kid, you can do something towards that before it's three or so.
As Chronicthehedgehog said, Serenity's a lot more "visceral" (CTH's word) - more violent and, in a lot of ways, more real. I wouldn't show a kid Serenity until they were at least 11 (let's face it, they learn a lot of things the second they move to secondary school). I consider that unfortunate because I would love to show an intelligent child the BDM for its thought-provoking aspects.
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Ooooh I loved Mysterious Cities of Gold!!! Loved it with a passion!!! In fact, I consider that to be the show that got me into sci-fi in the first place.
*ahem* Getting back to the point - Mysterious Cities of Gold certainly had some adult themes. Heck, the whole show was about the Spanish conquest of South America, and one of the main characters (Zia) is an Inca girl who was captured, taken from her home and sold into slavery, and is later found having been gagged and bound and left in a wooden crate on a Spanish sailing ship. And that was just by the second episode. It was also the first show I saw that dealt with death and losing family members.
When it was shown on UK TV the show also had little documentaries after each episode. One of the very first ones explained Human Sacrifice. Simply explained what it was and why it was seen as acceptable in ancient cultures. No shock horror or don't-try-this-at-home-kids stuff. I can't imagine TV shows getting away with that today. In some ways that's a shame, as it insults the intelligence of our children, but we have to be aware that kids really, really do absorb things. It's just important not to go too far in one direction or another. I know I'm one of many kids who was traumatised by Ginger's death when I read Black Beauty for the first time. Does that mean we should stop kids reading it?
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