HP 4 Too Dark?

[echoriath]

Apparently there's some controversy locally about the newest HP4 being "too dark" for kids under 13. My question is...if you let them read the books, which are far more descriptive and in-depth, then what is the difference between that and letting them see the film? The film is based on the book and so the book must have been equally dark, and I

Comments

[lhun_dweller]

Interesting question. My parents did just that: we could read anything. And I mean ANYTHING: in addition to sci-fi, fantasy, Arthurian legends, mythology, history of whatever caught my fancy that week, I brought home from the library at age 14 things such as "Portnoy's Complaint" (didn't finish it - too dull) and Colossus (thought it was the book version of the sci-fi movie, not a huge, torrid epic about a famous painter). Not a batted eyelash from Mom or Dad.

But they restricted our TV viewing out of concern for the visual exposure to violence. No "Starsky and Hutch" (yes, I'm THAT old), no "Sweeney Todd" (UK cop show). However, I was free to read novelizations of episodes of the very same shows, if I wished. They held that reading it in a book and seeing it dramatized on TV or in movies were two different experiences. And while I thought it a huge, hypocritical injustice in my early teens, I have to admit now I look at as an adult, they were right.

Reading is a self-controlled immersion: it's done with the lights on in a familiar and safe environment, and you can pause or close the book anytime you need a break. TV and movies (unless on video/DVD) require you to remain engaged or you lose the storyline. And movies in the cinema are larger-than-life, in-your-face, in-the-dark-alone experience you're supposed to lose yourself in. I think that's an especially important distinction for younger children who have not yet completely made it across the line separating what's real and what's pretend, or for those who are prone to carrying dark, scary images into their dreamworlds .

[echoriath]

I must be a weirdo. So far I'm the only one who thinks imagination and books are far more frightening than a movie.

Images don't scare me. In fact, try this next time: mute the movie and just watch the screen. Without the music, it's hardly even interesting (to me at least). For me that's how most movies are. I don't lose myself in them, my mind wanders and that could be why I don't really enjoy movies too often.

Books, on the other hand, suck me in and won't let go. I've remembered things from Stephen King books that still scare me because of the potential.

I've always said, and still maintain, that real people scare me far more than Dracula, zombies, viruses or any other things. People are the most potentially dangerous and do the most unexpected things.