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The Parent Perspective - The Parent Perspective is a monthly feature where parents tell us how their families navigate today's media-saturated environment. This month’s Parent Perspective comes from Dana in California, mother of Jack (age 5) and Ethan (age 2). You’ve gotten on. You’re settling in. You feel like you’ve got it together since you brought the goodie bag full of stuff to keep your 2 year old and your 5 year old busy on this airplane for hours. The plane is in the air, the beverage cart is on its way, and the movie is starting. Though the other passengers originally saw you as the enemy -- coming with your spawn to disrupt everything about this flight -- they have now seen that you’re not “that family”, and they are smiling, or better yet, even sleeping. You begin to relax a little. You look up at the screen that is 2 feet in front of you (it’s the kind of plane that has the small screens for every 3 rows of people) to see Matt Damon’s character being hooded, beaten, then threatened with a gun. This is the opening scene in The Bourne Ultimatum, a PG-13 movie. You look to see your 5 year old watching every second. So what did the airline do when I was in this situation? The first flight attendant I asked told me there was nothing she could do. A second suggested that my kids “look away” and then told me that the movies were edited anyway. However, it seemeed impossible to me to edit a “movie-whose-premise-is-terrorism” enough to make the amount of violence appropriate for all passengers. I had my husband ask if there was anything that could be done, then we asked yet another attendant who was finally responsive. Though I had hoped they would turn off just the screen in front of us or move us out of visual range of the screen, instead they turned off the movie for the entire plane. When I got home and did some online research, I realized that I was not the first to object to this practice; parents and the airlines have disagreed about this very issue since they started showing PG-13 and R rated movies in flight in the Fall of 2007. I realized how many times the airlines just tell the parents there is nothing that can be done, leaving the family trapped in their seats with objectionable images just feet from their children’s’ faces. Other notables on the list of movies that have been cleared to show on flights include 300, Fracture, Shooter, Spiderman 3, X-Men: The Last Stand, Casino Royale, Mission Impossible 3, King Kong and Gridiron Gang. So what can be done? While the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) all agree that these violent images are not good for children, there is NO regulatory agency that controls what is shown in the air. So, I’ve taken it upon myself to write lots of letters, and I encourage you to do the same. Write to the airline you use the most to let them know of your concern and ask what they are doing to prevent these kinds of problems. I also suggest contacting your State Representatives to ask about the related legislation called the “Family Friendly Flights Act” which was introduced in U.S. Congress on September 25th, 2007. Sadly, the next time I fly with my kids, I will bring them each personal DVD players with the headphones to “plug them in”, which I normally do not agree with. But I guess I’d just rather be the one to decide what they’ll be watching and listening to… at least while they are still young. More information:
If you'd like to share your own experiences or suggestions in a Parent Perspective, email us at cmch@childrens.harvard.edu |
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