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Showing Original Post only (View all)When Your Favorite Childhood Films Are a Little More Homophobic Than You Remembered [View all]
Every time I hear about a Hollywood remake of one of my old favorite movies, I roll my eyes. Seriously, does the world really need a remake of The Karate Kid? The original movie is great. Sure, Daniel-san's pants are one of the reasons I shudder when people talk about '80s fashion being back, but it still holds up pretty well.
As a parent, one of the great joys is exposing my kids to all the stuff I liked when I was little. It's great to snuggle up on the couch with the kiddos and watch old episodes of Fraggle Rock or The Muppet Show on an ugly afternoon. And parents have a built-in excuse to buy things like the Blu-Ray of The Goonies or The NeverEnding Story.
But a few times that we've gone back to our old childhood favorites, we've had a harsh wake-up call. Take Scooby-Doo, for instance. Who didn't grow up watching the capers of Scooby and his Mystery Machine pals? We couldn't wait to introduce it to the kids. We set the DVR and a few days later gathered the kids for a viewing. They loved it, but as the episodes aired, my husband and I started exchanging poignant looks increasingly often. The show is horribly racist. After one particularly offensive episode, we had a talk with our kids about the Asian people we know in our lives, and how they talk and act nothing like the people we just saw on Scooby-Doo.
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We got another big shock when my best friend brought home a DVD of Adventures in Babysitting. I cannot tell you how many times I watched this movie on VHS as a kid, but, trust me, it was a lot. It's rated PG-13 (which could mean a lot of different things for an '80s movie), and even though I couldn't remember anything particularly scandalous in it, I looked at the "Parents Guide" on IMDB to see if there was anything I needed to censor in the kids' viewing. There was a scene or two I would be skipping, a few bad words, but it didn't look too bad.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/Amelia/when-your-favorite-childhood-films-are-a-little-more-homophobic-than-you-remembered_b_2277954.html
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This happens to me A LOT when I watch 80s, and even some movies from the 90's. The amount of casual homophobia is often quite horrifying.