Hard to imagine...
It's hard to imagine anybody not enjoying "Up." Really, it's the most perfect examples of true all-ages entertainment since Rocky and Bullwinkle. Put it on your queue. Watch the first 8 minutes. If you aren't hooked at that point, you don't need to watch the rest. But chances are you will be.
(Quoted from a comment directed to me elsejournal. I'm just using it as a launching off point, I'm not actually irked at the commenter.)
I've been reading various discussions about spoiler protocol over the years. I put spoiler warnings on things because enough people I know do care about being unspoiled. In contrast, I often seek out the spoilers. It started becoming a habit years ago, when I watched a movie I expected to be escapist fare, and then found myself in a hysterical sobbing mess because of a movie-plot CPR back to life scene. I've avoided suspense movies for so long that I don't know whether I still have a trigger for that. I used to not mind dramatic violence, until one day I really, really did. Now I avoid it because I don't want to expose the kids to it, so I don't know whether that's an issue for me personally.
But those are triggers that most people can imagine.
I read some of the Dresden Files novels recently. They were spoken of lovingly and enthusiastically by people I know who speak up on a regular basis about social justice issues. But none of them that I recall warned me about problematic issues that permeate the book. (Maybe they did, and I didn't see it. I generally am alert for these things, though.)
Someone I know was talking about having this problem with children's books. Going along, happily reading a book all about animal parent/child interactions, only to suddenly have default-whiteness show up. (I'm not opposed to books about white children - I'm very happily reading Alexander's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day to M. I am just a very big Non-Fan of books where generic parents and children are portrayed as always white.)
It's even more pervasive with gender. An awful lot of children's books have maleness as an unmarked state, and only boys having adventures. I have a terrible clash of needs between editing stories ad-hoc and teaching reading skills. It's not a double-vision I should have to be sustaining. So my friend is starting up a site of some sort to help parents (and friends) out who are in this quandary - helping to sort out what books are "safe", and which problematic. (Before someone jumps in to Concern Troll over this, yes, I realize that it's not possible to safeguard 100%, and that a whole lot of marvelous stuff doesn't meet a standard of "not failing in any direction".)
I brought up the quote at the top because it illustrates the problem to me - people often truly can't imagine, and 8 minutes is possibly not long enough to evaluate fairly. Project's still in the planning stages, but since my friend knows that I have an flist with some parents (and friends) who are interested in this sort of thing...I figured we could start talking about this here.
This entry is cross-posted at http://trinker.dreamwidth.org/19353.html for the convenience of DW users. There are slightly different conversations happening at each. Currently
comments at DW.
(Quoted from a comment directed to me elsejournal. I'm just using it as a launching off point, I'm not actually irked at the commenter.)
I've been reading various discussions about spoiler protocol over the years. I put spoiler warnings on things because enough people I know do care about being unspoiled. In contrast, I often seek out the spoilers. It started becoming a habit years ago, when I watched a movie I expected to be escapist fare, and then found myself in a hysterical sobbing mess because of a movie-plot CPR back to life scene. I've avoided suspense movies for so long that I don't know whether I still have a trigger for that. I used to not mind dramatic violence, until one day I really, really did. Now I avoid it because I don't want to expose the kids to it, so I don't know whether that's an issue for me personally.
But those are triggers that most people can imagine.
I read some of the Dresden Files novels recently. They were spoken of lovingly and enthusiastically by people I know who speak up on a regular basis about social justice issues. But none of them that I recall warned me about problematic issues that permeate the book. (Maybe they did, and I didn't see it. I generally am alert for these things, though.)
Someone I know was talking about having this problem with children's books. Going along, happily reading a book all about animal parent/child interactions, only to suddenly have default-whiteness show up. (I'm not opposed to books about white children - I'm very happily reading Alexander's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day to M. I am just a very big Non-Fan of books where generic parents and children are portrayed as always white.)
It's even more pervasive with gender. An awful lot of children's books have maleness as an unmarked state, and only boys having adventures. I have a terrible clash of needs between editing stories ad-hoc and teaching reading skills. It's not a double-vision I should have to be sustaining. So my friend is starting up a site of some sort to help parents (and friends) out who are in this quandary - helping to sort out what books are "safe", and which problematic. (Before someone jumps in to Concern Troll over this, yes, I realize that it's not possible to safeguard 100%, and that a whole lot of marvelous stuff doesn't meet a standard of "not failing in any direction".)
I brought up the quote at the top because it illustrates the problem to me - people often truly can't imagine, and 8 minutes is possibly not long enough to evaluate fairly. Project's still in the planning stages, but since my friend knows that I have an flist with some parents (and friends) who are interested in this sort of thing...I figured we could start talking about this here.
This entry is cross-posted at http://trinker.dreamwidth.org/19353.html for the convenience of DW users. There are slightly different conversations happening at each. Currently
comments at DW.