Your Parent's Objections To Media

[Mr. DS]

What do you recall your parents saying "thats disgusting, turn it off" or "you are not allowed to watch that" to when it comes to media?   

My mother was always the killjoy when it came to this.  One example is my father was watching a stand up comedian talking about his "d!ck".  I was about 11 at the time and knew full well what he was making jokes at.  Hell I even thought it was funny.  My mother made him shut it off.

My father, who was always the more liberal one, was watching Metallica on TV with me.  They were perfoming the song "One" live and he told me it wasn't music and had me turn it off. 

[Jack]

My mom will get up and leave the room if my dad's watching any cop show where they're doing autopsies on dead bodies or that sort of thing. 

They never really cared what I watched though.  Come to think of it they never really cared what I did either lol.  As long as it wasn't on past my bedtime. 

[tracy]

Our parents weren't prudes but they kept an eye on what we watched. I remember when "M*A*S*H" came out and they monitored it for the first season to make sure it wasn't too much like the movie. Then we were allowed to see it with them. Also,our Dad....he was a baseball coach...took us to see "The Bad News Bears". He was so angry at the liberal use of bad language ,especially by the kids themselves. He refused to take to see the 2 sequels....we saw those later on VHS.

[FatFreddysCat]

My parents (well, actually my mother more than my Dad) were pretty compulsive when we were kids about film ratings and so forth. I'm not sure where it came from, my Mom wasn't particularly religious or anything, but she was very insistent on keeping me away from movies that might have anything gross or dirty in them.  

In one particularly infamous instance, Mom refused to let my brother and I go to see "Star Wars" during its initial theatrical run in 1977 (we were 8 and 7 at the time) because it was rated "PG," and therefore she figured that must mean that there was sex or foul language in it. Nevermind that she could've asked any of the other parents on my block (all of whom had let their own kids see "Star Wars" five or six times) if it was an OK movie for us to see, but nope, her mind was made up, it was rated "PG" and therefore were "too young" for it. So my bro and I missed out on a shared experience that nearly every other kid in our generation took part in, and I've never quite forgiven her for it. (I still remind her of it to this very day.)

...Mind you, three years later when "Empire Strikes Back" came out my parents must've decided we were "old enough" by then because they took us to see it. On our way out of the theatre my Dad commented, "Wow, that was pretty good, now I wish we'd seen the first one!" -- I swear I wanted to smack him. Haha.

I can also remember asking my parents several times if I could watch a certain movie on HBO and my Dad would always say "Well, it's on a bunch of times, I'll pre-screen it for you and let you know." Occasionally I'd get the green light after he'd seen something and decided it was OK, other times not. I remember when the first "Friday the 13th" hit cable when I was 10 or 11, he volunteered to "pre-screen" that one for me late one night and I swear his hair was still standing up the next morning. All he could say was "You are NOT watching that movie. I've never seen anything like that before in my life."

Thankfully, by the time I hit sixth grade in '81 the arguments over film choices had gotten less frequent. If memory serves, the very first "R" rated movie I was allowed to see was "Private Benjamin" with Goldie Hawn when it first hit cable around that time. I felt all grown up & stuff. Haha. Anyway, there's a scene in "Benjamin" where somebody goes topless for a brief instant (I forget if it's Goldie or one of the other female cast members) and my mother actually reached over and tried to cover my eyes. My Dad must've had enough of this silliness cuz he came to my rescue on that one, he said "G*ddammit, Irene, leave the poor kid alone! It's not gonna kill him if he sees a pair of tits!"   Thanks, Dad.

Sometimes I think that my Mom's early attempts at censorship were a major factor in my becoming a "B" movie/horror flick addict, because as soon as our family got our first VCR in the mid 80s, I immediately went out and got my own video store rental card and started renting every horror/splatter flick I could get my hands on, trying to catch up on all the good stuff I'd been missing out on up to that point. All these years later, I guess I still am!! :D

[The Burgomaster]

My parents are extremely liberal and never really made me turn off any program regardless of the subject matter.  When I was young, I went to the drive-in with them to see stuff like THE EXORCIST and EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX, BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK.  And look . . . I turned out to be normal (??????)

[AndyC]

When I was a kid, the "viewer discretion advised" notice on TV wasn't much more than a setup to tease me. "Uh oh, I guess you can't watch this, tee hee." Then we'd all watch.

My dad wasn't interested in most of what was on TV, but never objected to what the rest of the family watched - unless it was on at the same time as the news or a sporting event.

My mom generally let me watch most things, and was not above watching a teen comedy or a slasher flick herself if one was on. Not fussy at all about live action.

Where Mom got outspoken was when it came to cartoons. I could watch what I wanted, but animated shows in the 80s never measured up to the classics, which mostly included Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the 50s and early 60s. That was, apparently, the pinnacle of animation. I'd be watching The Transformers, and she'd have to lament, for the umpteenth time, how nobody made cartoons like Snagglepuss or Huckleberry Hound anymore.

She also never learned the names of the newer cartoons, or rather, she never dignified them by using the names. I watched "that one where the robots all turn into trucks and things." That practice continued into the 90s, with "that one with the yellow people."

Never had much conflict about music. The parents liked what they liked, I liked what I liked, and we generally agreed to disagree on the parts that didn't overlap. Being the youngest of four kids, I think Mom and Dad had gotten desensitized to rock by the time I took an interest in it.

And I think video games just baffled my parents in the early 80s. They were more concerned about the Atari burning an image into the TV screen, because they'd heard about the old Pong-type games doing that.

[Allhallowsday]

My mother and father always seemed to be out on Saturday nights when movies like VALLEY OF THE DOLLS or ROSEMARY'S BABY or THAT CERTAIN SUMMER or BORN INNOCENT came on... Mom would call us on the phone and growl: "You're not watching that filthy movie are you...???!!!   Who ever answered would reply: "Oh no, Mommy!"  Too often she reminded us to tune in!  "Filthy"???  I'm there! 

Around the same time I remember pushing the envelope playing THE BEATLES Abbey Road on my father's Grundig stereo console.  I had it cranked.  When PAUL McCARTNEY starting wailing on "Oh Darling" he went from a simmer to a boil and ordered it off the stereo!! 

[Rev. Powell]

I was lucky, my mom got me into horror movies and took me to see THE HOWLING, THE SHINING and many other early 80s horrors... mostly 'cause Dad hated them and wouldn't go with her. When I was younger she used to hold her hands over my eyes when there was nudity.

They never made any attempt to censor any of my music or reading... except for porn. They would throw out any "Playboy"s or dirty magazines I managed to find and not hide well enough.

[indianasmith]

My Dad was a pastor and my mom was an English teacher . . . but they made no effort to censor what I watched.  That being said, we only got the local networks and PBS, and the local theater wouldn't even THINK about letting you see an R movie before 17, so they didn't HAVE to be that vigilant!

But I know a friend of mine was talking on FB recently about watching Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN 2 with his 3 year old, and I was appalled!

[ER]

The only thing I was ever forbidden to watch was Twin Peaks, which naturally made me a million times more interested in the show.

[FatFreddysCat]

Never had much conflict about music. The parents liked what they liked, I liked what I liked, and we generally agreed to disagree on the parts that didn't overlap. Being the youngest of four kids, I think Mom and Dad had gotten desensitized to rock by the time I took an interest in it.

Thankfully, by the time my brother and I started getting into music in our early teens, my Mom had backed off on her attempts at censorship.

I do remember seeing a clip of the PMRC's big news conference/Senate hearing on the nightly news when they were showing huge blow-ups of all these supposedly "evil" album covers (Def Leppard's Pyromania, Venom's Welcome To Hell, W.A.S.P.'s Animal, etc.) and my brother and I were like "I got that one! I got that one! I got that one too!" -- and the only comment my parents made was "Is this what you spend your money on? Good Lord." Haha.

Dad was an Elvis fan and Mom was a Beatles devotee and since both of those artists had been accused of being "evil" or "pornographic" in their heydays, I guess my parents figured that this PMRC thing was just more of the same, and that it would pass. Thankfully, it did.

[Allhallowsday]

My Dad was a pastor and my mom was an English teacher . . . but they made no effort to censor what I watched.  That being said, we only got the local networks and PBS, and the local theater wouldn't even THINK about letting you see an R movie before 17, so they didn't HAVE to be that vigilant!

But I know a friend of mine was talking on FB recently about watching Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN 2 with his 3 year old, and I was appalled!

I agree.  Who'd wanna look at that sh!r?   

 

[alandhopewell]

     The main thing I remember was my mother not wanting us boys to watch "The Three Stooges" on "Captain Penny's Comedy Clubhouse"; however, it was my grandfather's tv, and HE liked them, so we got to watch them.

[JaseSF]

After Salem's Lot completely freaked me out as a kid, my parents wouldn't let me watch horror movies for years. Probably with good reason though as I had nightmares every time I saw something scary as a kid. Nowadays I can't get enough of scary movies though.

My parents also objected to The Simpsons early on and stuff like Beavis and Butt-Head that I naturally loved as a teenager/young adult. They also objected to some of my music favourites - stuff like Twisted Sister, Beastie Boys, Pop Will Eat itself and years later stuff like Rage Against the Machine and Motorhead (although I think some of it may be that it was loud).

[Mr. DS]

My brother actually got me into the horror genre.  He let me watch but would cover my eyes at the gory parts.   My mom knew about it and was somewhat ok with it.   My mom wouldnt care as much anout horror as she did about sexual scenes apparently.    Matter of fact the terms "dick, cock p***y, f**k (in sexual form) were never allowed to be used by anyone in the house.