August 5, 2008, - 11:13 am
Parental Malpractice Nation: Too Many Americans Are Kathy Hilton, Many 10-Year-Olds See Violent R-Rated Films
By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
I’m not surprised that Kathy Hilton–Exhibit A of parental malpractice in America–has the chutzpah to attack John McCain for using an image of his daughter in a campaign ad.
McCain’s the bad guy for using a picture of someone we all know is a dingbat and a whore in his ad. But she’s done nothing wrong by raising her daughter to be a porn star and professional airhead.
That’s the way it is in today’s America. Up is down, right is left. And Michelle Malkin criticized the McCain campaign for mocking the porn-star daughter of campaign contributors, even though that daughter and those contributors are complete embarrassments–and John McCain is right.
And, sadly, Kathy Hilton is just a wealthier, higher profile version of far too many parents in America. Researchers found that 35% of “tweens”–kids aged 10-14–in America say their parents let them see R-rated movies in which savage beatings, severed heads, murder, rape, and torture are depicted on the big screen.
As I’ve noted, I was aghast at the violence in the recent Batman movie, “The Dark Knight,” which you know plenty of young kids went to see. I remember that–at the screening of “300”–I watched a father answer questions from his daughter, who couldn’t have been older than eight, about the sex and blood in the movie.
While a big part of the problem is Hollywood, the other major component of the problem is absentee and/or neglectful parents, who ought to be sued for malpractice. They’re raising yet another generation of dishonest, stupid, desensitized morons . . . just like Kathy Hilton did with daughter, Paris.
I remember as a kid how my father–before he saw “Star Wars”–worried the movie might be too scary for young kids. After he saw it, he thought it was great and took us to see it. Few parents preview movies these days. They just take their kids to see it with them for the first time or lazily send them with friends as a baby-sitting technique. I also remember when I was in 8th or 9th grade, and my father didn’t want me to go see “Risky Business,” since it was about and glorified prostitution and pimping.
Today, I think few parents would think twice about that. According to a “Pediatrics” magazine study, I’m right. And in many cases, over 20% of 10-year-olds say they’ve seen these violent, bloody movies. If you allow you 10-year-old to see these movies, you should be on birth control or have a vasectomy:
Researchers know what your tween saw last summer: savage beatings, severed heads, murder, rape and torture.
In a study released Monday in the journal Pediatrics, researchers from Dartmouth Medical School estimate more than 2.5 million children ages 10 to 14 watch the typical violent, R-rated movie.
A few movies, such as Blade, Hollow Man and Bride of Chucky, claim what researchers say are huge child audiences — as many as 7.8 million, including an estimated 1 million 10-year-olds. . . .
Previous studies have found violent media can increase aggression and desensitize to real violence, and many violent films are marketed during kids’ TV shows.
Worth and colleagues asked 6,522 children if they had seen movies from a list of 534 released in the past few years. Researchers plucked 40 R-rated movies with “the most extreme examples of graphic violence” and found that, on average, 12.5% of kids had seen each movie.
The study didn’t ask whether children saw them in theaters, on video, on cable TV or on the Internet, but more than one in three said parents let them watch R-rated movies “sometimes” or “all the time.” Even among kids who said their parents never let them watch such movies, 22.6% had seen at least one.
Children with TVs in their bedroom saw more violent movies, and African-American boys were much more likely to have seen them. More than 80% said they had seen Blade, Training Day and the horror spoof Scary Movie.
Yes, far too many American parents are just like Kathy Hilton, with sons and daughters just as useless and vapid as Paris Hilton.
But John McCain is the bad guy.
**** UPDATE: Reader Sean writes with some good suggestions (and points):
Amen to your post about absentee parents who let their kids see almost anything. My wife and I check out websites like www.kids-in-mind.com or www.screenit.com to preview exactly WHAT is in these movies.
There are even some movies that are PG-13 that should really be R so we trust our judgment, not that of the film industry. Our boys are 14 and 12, and they don’t like the fact that we preview the movies either online or in person, but that’s how it goes.
The same is true with video games. Rated M? Fuggedaboutit! They are certainly rough and tumble boys, but we make sure that they know that Hollywood’s version of reality is not acceptable in our little corner of the world.
We see plenty of parents who are reaping what they’ve sown now that their middle schoolers are becoming unruly and out of control in part because of years of exposure to violent movies and games. We vowed not to go down that road.
Barrack Huessein compared Himself to Paris Hilton in 2005:
A February 24, 2005, Washington Post article begins:
There’s nothing exotic or complicated about how phenoms are made in Washington, and, more to the point, how they are broken.
“Andy Warhol said we all get our 15 minutes of fame,” says Barack Obama. “I’ve already had an hour and a half. I mean, I’m so overexposed, I’m making Paris Hilton look like a recluse.”
PrincessKaren on August 5, 2008 at 11:44 am