Monsterama is all about cute creeps. I'm a big fan of scary stuff aimed at children. But I'm noticing a cultural trend towards exposing kids to the genuinely terrifying that puzzles and interests me. I mean, as a parent, I'm not sure I get the idea of gross-out kiddie cars, or making kids believe they are being attacked by a zombie. Not that I don't find it fascinating to look at. The awesome band MGMT really captures this vibe in their new video for Kids. What's going on, here? I'm interested in your opinions...
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Cute and Really Creepy
Monsterama is all about cute creeps. I'm a big fan of scary stuff aimed at children. But I'm noticing a cultural trend towards exposing kids to the genuinely terrifying that puzzles and interests me. I mean, as a parent, I'm not sure I get the idea of gross-out kiddie cars, or making kids believe they are being attacked by a zombie. Not that I don't find it fascinating to look at. The awesome band MGMT really captures this vibe in their new video for Kids. What's going on, here? I'm interested in your opinions...
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11 comments:
Ooh, an interesting read. Well, I must confess to actually being a kid who grew up exposed to some genuinely scary stuff that popped up around the 80s-90s, so I dunno how much help I'll be with my own opinions on that matter. I grew up playing with the Aliens films toyline, snarling Jurassic Park dinosaurs and other things, and watching stuff like Real Ghostbusters along side very mature rated horror films, video games, and Japanese animations.
(Yes, I strayed from parental supervision quite often. But hey, they BOUGHT me the toys and video games I asked for and didn't say anything. I did get scolded for having nightmares after watching Alien on tv the first time, though. I was about 6.) ;P
Those cars are really creepy, yet somehow cute at the same time and the Japanese video was also very interesting, if not a bit amusing. Still, I think maybe there's a line that should be drawn for kids being exposed to some things that seem a little out of their range of handling.
Like the MGMT video. It seems like that kid would be young enough for that stuff to maybe not make so big of an impression on him, but some of those things in the video seemed pretty freaky and intense. He did go from crying to smiling a lot, though.
I'd say it's hard to predict how something will effect a kid. They're either maybe going to end up scared of the dark for the rest of their lives, or a huge horror buff not easily scared by anything! :D
That aside...that video and song were awesome! I'm now interested in this band. lol Thanks for posting that! I like 'Electric Feel', too. Eep, long comment.
And now for the question I was going to ask regarding the Secret Saturdays that I couldn't think of before: Can you say what Argost's age is or hint at what his age range is?
I'd like to hold back some secrets regarding Argost for now... I promise all will be revealed in future episodes!
Thanks for the thoughtful post. Very insightful. But here's a question: those Aliens and Dinosaur toys didn't traumatize you, did they? I mean, you weren't scared of them, right? Toys are something you, as a kid, are in control of. I truly believe kids need small doses of scary stuff... this blog is full of that kind of stuff (check out the scholarly quotes in the sidebar). I'm more concerned with adults forcing frightening things upon children who aren't ready for them. Are these examples of going too far?
The monster car looks very interesting! I grew up watching horror movies and reading EC horror comics.
I'd like to think that every parent knows their child and knows what they should and shouldn't expose them to.
My dad took me to see Star Wars when I was 6...there's some stuff in there that could be harsh for a child. Dismemberment, planets blowing up, people getting shot..but I was ok with it and fell in love with sci-fi.
A few months later some new sci-fi movie came out which my dad took me to. I don't recall the name but it was definitely more adult in nature..I think it was some kind of body snatcher type flick. All I remember of it to this day is a scene where a house wife cuts a couple fingers off while chopping veggies. That few seconds has stayed with me for 32 years.
On the other hand, I religiously watched the Saturday afternoon Creature Double Features. But that was less scary watching it on TV instead of a huge dark theater.
Maybe it's just the times a'changin and kids are losing out on some of the magic childhood innocence years.
Maybe it's the evolution of our culture and what society shows as being "ok".
Or maybe the world just has a lot more boneheaded parents :)
That car is the grossest thing I've ever seen. As far as gross cars go...
I'm a huge horror fan and a parent of a four-year-old girl and a one year old boy.
I'm not a prude and I was exposed to some pretty horrifying stuff as a kid.
My thought is that you can expose yourself as an adult to anything that you like, but that to some degree you have a responsibility to find some age appropriate stuff for your children. Saying that "they won't be damaged" or that "they are too young to even understand it" is to undercut your own reasoning for the exposure. If the kid doesn't "get it" why bother? Further, how do we even know what will damage our kids? How do we know that we weren't damaged.
I think we become jaded, seen-it-all adults and we mis-remember ourselves as children. The things that scared us soften and we think that we were always so sophisticated and invulnerable. We try to show everyone how cool it is that our kids are viral video-punked-zombie bait. We say, "I'm not the dumb old parent trying to protect my kids from stuff, look how sophisticated I AM that I can scare the crap out of my kids or expose them to gross out.
OR as a matter of taste...maybe your kid would prefer an Elmo kiddie car instead of gag-inducing one. Like whatever you like, but don't offer your kids up on the alter of you supposed coolness.
I love Halloween (though I'm usually depressed as hell by the time that time of the year), but I was so wildly pissed when I accidentally turned down an aisle at Wal-Mart and my then 2 year old was faced with an animatronic ghoul that tore its own head off. It bothered her and stuck with her.
You do not parent with ironic detachment.
I dig the SECRET SATURDAYS, by the way, but Piecemeal scared the crap out of my daughter. I screwed up letting her watch that. She started getting a little smart-mouthed after watching too much SPONGEBOB. Again, my fault.
I tried to show how cool a parent I was, but being nonchalant about what went in to my children's brains.
I did notice that my daughter likes little monsters, action figures, figurines, dolls and such. Something that I presume she has some control over. The bigger it gets the less she seems to like it. "Big Spookies"
I love monsters, but I love my kids more and maybe they can discover some of that stuff on their own, in their own time, rather me chasing them down the street dressed as a zombie.
I sound like the parents I hated when I was a kid.
You summed up the way I feel exactly, Gary. It's the hip, ironic detachment that gets me, too.
And you also touched upon one of the main reasons that it's important for me to ask these questions. The Secret Saturdays is meant to be scary in a kid-friendly way, not traumatic. I'd like it to walk that edge, but sometimes its hard to see where that edge even is.
I'll keep waiting for further episodes then. The suspense! :D
Nope, the toys didn't. I enjoyed them a lot. They kind of gave me my love of really detailed figures, I think. They were pretty detailed and had great articulation, some of them.
Of course, later on as I grew up I was still kinda was wondering how some of those kinds of toys were aimed at kids. They also were very plastic and pointy I recall (a lot of the old toys seem to be, I've noticed.) They also came with many little projectile weapons. Kind of dangerous but that's a whole other section right there, I think.
Agreed. Too much of anything can be a bad thing. Children should not be forced to be scared or have too intense things shown to them.
I kind of could rant about something like that now that I think about all the times I've been in R-rated horror/adultish films and seen very young children in there! PG-13 fine, not R. Not when they're like 3 and 6. >_< (Example: Silent Hill. In the film there were several gratuitous scenes of violence/horror. This is the one time I genuinely felt angry about seeing little kids in the movie theater.) Same goes for gross-out-adult comedies.
I'm not exactly sure about the car because of the fine line between silly/cute and what were they thinking?! blurs a bit for me, or how Japan is because I know their society is a bit more relaxed on certain things than Western society is. The music video did seem a bit much for such a young child, though. But then again I wonder what it's like for young children who appear in very adult aimed horror films. I wouldn't recommend anybody to sit their kid in front of the tv to watch the John Carpenter version of 'The Thing' or something, though. People need to judge what can and can't be appropriate for kids.
To what Gary said, though, it seems to sometimes be that you can't help but get a kid exposed to some things by accident. :(
As for Piecemeal, I must even admit when I first ever saw him myself I was kinda like "Whoa." lol He's pretty freaky. And he has a lot of mouth close-ups. There are much worse things out there in the world of tv and cartoons, though.
Other example: I love watching Flapjack, but that show has got some crazy, freaky stuff in it. Makes me kind of think of the old days of Ren and Stimpy.
As most have summed up... "Creepy" is actually very relative. Child or adult...you never know what will get under the skin of a certain individual.
I was always a strange kid. Most traditional scary and gross out stuff had no effect on me, it actually made me appreciate other things in strange ways ... haha.
But I recall the two most traumatically scary things that got to me... they were Homer's home made "Krusty" bed for Bart on the Simpsons. After I saw that I wouldn't sleep in my own bed for months. I wasn't even THAT young... but I even went back and watched it again and I still think it's terrifying. My parents thought I was being ridiculous, and I always resented that.
The other was from an episode of Pooh bear, where he got stuck in the wall of Rabbit's house and in an attempt to cover up Pooh's bum... he drew this face on it and stuff. It was so unsettling to me as a child I had no idea what to do, what's worse is I had a picture book of that story, that of course, included an image of that monstrosity.
Look, I may not be a parent (even though I am emotionally), but if I were I believe these things are bound to happen. I would not be against exposing my kid to potentially frightening things. Only through experience can we both together learn what may or may not be too much for them.
You can't protect a child from everything, as much as you'd like, but you can work together with them.
I lived through it, they can too, and it's something we can share.
I do not believe frightening things should be forced upon children, no, But if they happen to come across it and are frightened of it there's nothing much you can do.
I firmly believe fear has the best potential to make us stronger and build character, even though it hurts deeply at the time. however that is by no means ANY reason to possibly toy with someones emotions or psyche "just because they can."
We are all our own individual selves- talents, defects, and all. When you cater to a generalized audience... there really is no line or edge, sad to say, but that is what makes the world wonderful in my opinion.
The only one who can say what is crossing the line is the child themselves, and I think we should respect that as difficult as it may be.
You can't please everyone.
However, Jay, I can already tell you if I were about 15-20 years younger I still would have dug the Sats as much as I do now because I was one of those types who really got around to appreciating the darker stuff (as I said... it really all depends on the child). In fact... The episode that really clicked with my childhood would have to be "Ghost in the Machine". I seriously felt 7 years old watching that one, I was so taken aback I got all emotional and cried. No lie.
I dunno about the car. If we're going to do monster cars for little kids then I say we do some stuff like the old Aurora Monster Car models or something--Frankenstein's Flivver, Wolf Man's Wagon, and that. That car is just slightly west of warped.
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