Taboo TV/Movie Hijinks and Your Childhood

We didn't have TV when I was a kid. Couldn't afford to buy one.

But still, good story.

I still watch little TV. We lived on a farm, worked hard but had little money. But the woods, hills and streams provided unlimited entertainment. I enjoyed it.. :-)

I actually had a rather different experience: I was the older kid corrupting the youth. In high school some of my friends were as much as four and five years younger than me, and the older among us saw fit to "educate" the younger. This education turned sour when a friend's parent walked into the room as a group of us was watching Leon (a.k.a. The Professional) during the scene where Gary Oldman massacres a family, and the results were nothing short of explosive: my arguments that it was "really a very good movie" didn't hold much water during the movie's most gratuitous scene, and earned me a black mark for a few months.

I've watched my fair share of movies that my parents don't know about. I watched Hot Fuzz just the other night. I usually just wait til after my parents go to bed to watch.

My parents didn't believe in censorship but they were fans of the LONG talk. I could watch just about anything I wanted to but anything that was fodder for conversation meant it would be a long conversation, talking about issues from various sides, picking a side and defending it, and so forth. It was a clever ploy to get me to realize what I was watching, what message was being delivered, and whether or not it was an acceptable message. They were trying to get me to be a critical thinker and to realize that I didn't have to swallow everything that pop culture was trying to feed me. The way I think of it, unless you go live with the Amish, you're going to be exposed to pop culture. Children should be taught to dissect the meaning behind the messages so they won't have the "deer in the headlights" effect when they are exposed to bad stuff.

My parents are immigrants from a country with much strict "obscenity" laws. The famous funny story in our family is the time my dad came home from work and just saw two people kissing on TV, shouted "What is this crap!?" and turned the tv off. It was Home Improvement, actually a family favorite in our house. And my brother and I must have been 9 and 13 by that time. Ironically, he had no problem taking both of us to see Jurassic park when I was 8 and my bro was 4! We both left in the middle of the movie because we were scared out of our wits. My brother lasted longer than I did....

Back to tv, my big forbidden show was Doogie Howser (and soap operas, when I happened to be home instead of at school). We had two tvs, one in the guest room. So if my mom was distracted, I'd sneak off to the guest room, close the door as quietly as I could (which was against the rules), turn the volume as high as I dared (I knew exactly how much sound would not penetrate the door) and sit with one ear to the door and one finger near the power button. If I heard my mom coming, I'd turn it off, and rush out into the hall to look nonchalant. But my room and the guest room were on opposite ends of the hall, so this rarely ever worked.