Child's Play

Since my past occupation focused on caring for young children it goes without saying that media censorship played a large role in my day to day tasks. The internet, computer games, TV, movies and even song lyrics all had to be surveyed with a very keen eye lest the ears of a young one pick up on something untoward and repeat it loudly and proudly to all the guests at your next dinner party. Artists such as Rhianna, Ke$ha and even America's golden girl Katy Perry have all let slip with some racy content at some stage, and if a film is not of the cartoon or Harry Potter variety then it simply doesn't get a look in. But are we sure sheltering the little darlings from such things is going to keep them eternally pure of mind and heart, or is depriving them merely going to exacerbate the problem in the long run?

Though I despise musicals and the film was released 4 years before I graced this Earth, my favorite movie as a child was the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And when I say child I don't refer to the heady days of my adolescent youth but the days of riding my bike only on my block and not taking candy from strangers - around 7 years old. So liberal were my slightly hippie arts loving parents they thought a macabre musical about a cross-dressing transvestite scientist from Transsexual, Transylvania kidnapping a newly engaged couple on a cold rainy night and forcing them to take part in various semi-clothed violent escapades to awaken his sub-human half-naked creation Rocky was mere entertainment fodder for a 7 year old. Throw in a sexually engaged sister and brother, a Neo-Gothic castle-come-spaceship, a cameo by Meatloaf in which he receives an ice pick to the head, a sumptuous feast at which the diners are served none other than the aforementioned 'Meatloaf' and a few PG rated sex scene's and you have yourself a light-hearted Sunday afternoon romp in front of the TV. The costumes were skimpy, the show-tunes filled with double-entendre and tawdry delight and the storyline an epic drift into the imaginary - the likes of which would never be seen or accepted in this current day and age (not by the mainstream anyway). I found Tim Curry hypnotizing, the musical numbers energetic and catchy, and the wonderfully bizarre characters enchanting. I watched it so often I knew the lyrics and dance moves to all the songs and can even remember singing into my hairbrush in front of the TV on numerous occasions (how very cliche…).

And yet, even though I was subjected to such lurid depravity at such a young age I never felt the urge to run off and become a transvestite, a vampire or a mad scientist that lobotomizes peoples brains for the sake of discovering '…the secret to life itself' - as Dr Frank-N-Furter put it. But let's face it, with the pure drivel that passes as entertainment these days kids do not have much to aspire to when it comes to forms of replication or rebellion. The only vampire we see at present hails not from Transylvania but from England, and spends his time courting American teenage girls while running from Werewolves, who are no doubt chasing him to stop him from spouting that god-awful fake American accent. And a Saturday morning in front of the TV or an afternoon at the pictures is at best going to produce a scantily clad troupe of female formation dancers wearing way too much make up and singing off key about a love they've never experienced and sex they've never had, or at worst an almost-but-not-quite Gothic team of cloak-donned spectacle-wearing teenagers painting fake scars on their foreheads with eye liner they've stolen from their Mother and pointing sticks at the sky trying to summon 'he who cannot be named' to exact vengeance on anyone over the age of 16. Heaven help us if they ever turn to MTV, in which case we'd have an infestation of 'meatballs' and 'Guido's' roaming the city in spandex mini skirts, stiletto heels and button-down shirts that are nowhere near buttoned down declaring it's party time on every corner and sucking face to the point of swallowing each other heads. This would no doubt be followed by a severe plague of deaths due to hair gel poisoning and hair extension inhalation.

But if we stopped to step back and look at the bigger picture we'd come to realize that children are as fickle as they are impressionable. Any given fad lasts for 3 to 6 months tops and then they are on to the next big thing. It often seems it's the parents who get carried away a lot more than the kids, and we all know that kids like to do whatever their parents dislike. By being allowed to watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show at such a young age I like to believe I turned out a rather well-balanced human being who is accepting of all creatures great and small no matter what their persuasion, and who's appreciation of musicals and the arts on a whole is so refined that no Broadway production or show-tune filled Hollywood claptrap has ever held a candle to the film since. Of course certain subjects are off limits to the younger generation and I'd like to think that these are easy to spot, but often when a harmless yet taboo subject is brought out in the open and treated in a light-hearted manner a child can learn a lot more about life and be much better off for it than if said subject was constantly ignored or tip-toed around. The sooner children are respected and treated like adults the sooner they will come to act like an adult. And you should never underestimate the perceptiveness of children, as they can always see right through you.