I'm not much of an NFL fan, so I decided to make this Sunday a movie afternoon. The first movie on my list was Grease. I felt like watching it because the TV show Glee was doing Grease as a school musical. As I watched the movie, I couldn't help but wonder several things. Besides the obvious, such as "How much hair product did the crew go through", I had to wonder how my parents would even let me watch this movie as a kid.
Although I am not a parent, I believe that most parents do the best job they know how when raising their kids. Most parents do not intentionally expose their children to inappropriate things or put them in harm's way. There is no instruction manual for parenting, no fail-safe way to raise your kids so that they become healthy, happy, well-adusted adults.
While watching Grease and having a solo concert in my living room singing along, I had to wonder why I was ever allowed to watch this movie as a kid. On the surface, it's a classic boy meets girl story, complete with lots of dancing and fun 1950s costumes. As an adult, I able to understand the multitude of sexual references and sub-plot of Rizzo possibly being pregnant because Kenickie's condom broke. I didn't get those as a kid. Just google the lyrics to "Greased Lightning"if you don’t believe me about the sexual references. Greased Lightning
It made me think of all the other movies that I probably should not have watched as a kid. By stating these, I mean no disrespect to my parents. Perhaps they didn't know what these movies were all about. Perhaps they figured I wouldn’t understand things. In any event, I watched these movies way too young and now I'm blogging about them.
1) Grease 2 - I only reference the "Reproduction", "Let's Do it for our Country", or "We're Going to Score Tonight" songs. Again, google the lyrics to any of these songs if you've never seen this movie.
2) Dirty Dancing. The fact that Penny had an abortion (illegal, to make it worse) completely went over my head as a kid. This was simply a movie about dancing. I watched this at a friend’s birthday party, even though my mom said I was too young to watch the movie. Yes, I was a sassy, stubborn child. Sorry, mom.
3) Footloose. I'm not sure where to begin with this movie. I guess I must have been blinded by the whole "town where you can't dance" and "rebellious preacher daughter" story. Ariel was a bit of a slut. Does anyone else remember the scene where she stood in the church and told her father that she wasn’t a virgin? How did I miss the scene where the guy slips Kevin Bacon a joint in the classroom? If you missed it too, it’s the scene before he speeds off in his car and does his “angry dance” at the warehouse?
4) Revenge of the Nerds. Need I say more? This is a total teen sex comedy.
5) Secret Admirer. I'm not sure my mother knew how young I was when I first saw this movie. I doubt my parents have even seen this movie. I saw this movie while having a sleepover at a friend’s house. She was a couple of years older than me, but we were both far too young to have seen this movie. It came out in 1985 and I was probably at the tender age of 9 when I saw this movie. On the surface, a guy finally realizes his female friend is in love with him (novel concept, huh?), but a big part of the movie is a girl wanting to go "all the way" with a guy on his birthday. I just remember thinking how dumb it was. I might appreciate this movie as an adult, as it features a young Kelly Preston (Mrs. John Travolta) and Lori Loughlin (Becky on Full House, for you 80s/90s kids), and the plot may not have been abysmal. I haven't seen it as an adult, since I was a bit traumatized in childhood, although I could never tell my cool older friend.
6) Can't Buy Me Love. I figure this movie kind of goes without saying. A young, nerdy Patrick Dempsey pays a girl to pretend she likes him so he can be considered cool. Can you say "prostitution"?
7) 16 Candles. Need I say more?
8) Look Who's Talking. I remember clearly the first time I saw this movie. My sixth grade teacher allowed students to stay after school to watch this movie with her supervision. If you've seen this movie, you can understand why this was totally wrong. To make it worse, I was in Catholic school when I watched this movie with my teacher, just footsteps away from a Catholic church.
After reviewing this, I realized that it may sound like my parents paid no attention to what was going on in my life. This couldn't be further from the truth. I have very good parents, who probably protected me from far more than I realized.
Looking back, what movies are you shocked that your parents let you watch when you were a kid? When will you let your kids see this movie?
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