My wife had a great idea for a family outing today. My daughter and I would go to the dollar movies while my wife shopped. We’d get back together and grab some pizza for lunch.
We had two movies to choose from: The Lego Movie 2 or Minions: The Rise of Groo. My initial inclination was that The Lego Movie 2 would be better. The Minions movie, of course, is about henchmen looking for the right evil boss for them. But I talked myself into the movie for a simple reason: time. The Lego Movie 2 was twenty minutes longer, and since both started at 11am, I didn’t want our daughter waiting for lunch until 1pm.
The movie was silly and featured lots of slapstick humor. My daughter was transfixed, and except for a few scenes where she was scared for the Minions, she enjoyed the experience. We ate buttery popcorn, sat in a cool theater on a hot, humid day, and had a chance to laugh.
The content of the film, however, made me uneasy. It was tough to tell what the point of the movie was. On the one hand, the Minions were cute anthropomorphic creatures who were essentially the Three Stooges. On the other hand, they were characters whose entire goal was to find a villain or evil person to serve. I kept going back and forth between thinking the movie was harmless fun and subversive play, something like, “Hey, kids. Aren’t these evil characters cute? Villainy is worth laughing about!”
If I leaned toward the latter, I began talking myself into thinking that the movie was subverting its subversive message. The Minions ended up accidentally crushing every one they served. The Minions are people dedicated to serving someone who they inevitably show to be an idol. We even get a false ending where the Minions serve the Queen and get rewarded as heroes…only to have them fall in line with a young Groo (their master in the original Minions vehicle, Despicable Me).
Walking out of the movie, my daughter had two reactions.
One: those Minions were cute.
Two: wasn’t it sweet how the little one had a teddy bear and shared?
I’m not a five-year-old, so there’s no doubt my sense of what she’s getting from a film or tv show is wildly different from what I would get from it. If those were her takeaways, then my worries were ill-founded.
Then it happened.
During her solo “nap” time this afternoon, our daughter was playing something she didn’t want share with us. How did we know? Because when we asked what she was playing, she said, “I don’t want to tell you.”
Why, I inquired?
Because, she explained, she was playing “bad guys.”
Okay. “Was this because of Minions?” I asked.
She nodded. She had been playing school, she explained, and the bad guys had come to school wanting to learn how to be bad but had ended up just learning about letters and numbers.
Not a bad set-up for a movie or cartoon short, frankly.
Also, the game was a clear sign that she picked up both on the attractiveness of the Minions and how they were committed to trouble.
The tension in the room as I explained the problem with the movie was palpable. I know my wife thinks I was overreacting, that the movie was a harmless cartoon that shouldn’t be prohibited and that I’m a harsh Puritan for even broaching the subject.
But I didn’t like it, and I have to be willing to say I don’t like and to advocate that Cat not watch the movie anymore until she’s able to see why the movie is objectionable and that it’s not simple moral prudery to react that way.
Ultimately, I was the one at fault because I suspected the movie was not good and I went to it anyway out of convenience. If I’m going to make a big deal about it, then I need to put my foot down before my daughter watches it.
Learning Together 