The iPad Is More Like The iBabysitter

Last week while studying a script, I desperately needed a break and decided to go to the movies. The movie (I won’t mention the title), was unnecessarily violent and the script was somewhat weak. Even more disturbing, however, was watching parents who chose to bring young children into the theater. I noticed many handed them an iPhone, an iPod touch, or an iPad (which I suppose, is far cheaper than a babysitter).

While I understand R-rated movies leaves it up to the parents discretion to bring in a minor, it turns me off to see these ignorant, selfish adults exposing a young child’s developing mind to unnecessary violence rather than pay for a babysitter. Images are powerful, and once children are exposed to something inappropriate, like graphic imagery, a parent can’t exactly delete that from their memory.

All R-rated movies aren’t the same. Some movies warrant codes that should read “XV D XP H,” a system, which gives a legend that translates the code as “extreme violence, drug content, extreme profanity, and horror imagery.” When you have a film in theaters that features a mutilated teenage girl face-f**king a monster to death with a chainsaw, and you treat that movie the exact same way, (in terms of access) as you would treat American Hustle, something is broken beyond repair!

Is it the MPAA’s responsibility to be more precise in their ratings?

Is it the theater’s responsibility to more effectively manage who is going into R-rated movies? Is it the parent’s responsibility to be better, more conscientious parents?

Or, is it our responsibility, as a society, to say something to these parents?

My disdain toward the moral ineptitude of the parents was quite obvious. I was visibly annoyed, yet right before I was about to blurt out a comment, I noticed the child playing a violent video game.

The Apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.