Just Call Me the Church Lady

and not because I've recently started attending church (which I have). But I'm afraid I'm becoming an insufferable, uptight, old-fashioned prude (or I always was one and being a mother has just pushed it to the surface).

Today I took the X-Man to see Happy Feet. This was his first time seeing a movie in a movie theatre. He has watched movies before at home, on the couch, happily munching cheerios and yelling at his sister to "QUIET DOWN THERE!" (um, okay Max). Among the movies he's viewed at home and enjoyed: My Neighbor Totoro, Toy Story, Pippi Longstocking (the very poorly dubbed Swedish version, much to the Mr.'s chagrin), and The Brave Little Toaster. There was a deep mid-century musical phase around age 3 which culminated in repeated viewings of the middle section of The Sound of Music, as well as major crushes on both "Nanny" Maria and Gretel. But Happy Feet was his first foray into a movie at the cinema.

It went fine--he got a bit bored in the middle (the dangers of overfishing mean very little to him) but hung on til the end. I probably enjoyed it more than he did. Certainly I'd give it a thumbs up. The fact that Savion Glover does the tapping for Mumble is an obvious bonus. But what I wasn't really prepared for was my outraged reaction to the previews.

There is a little-creature-on creature violence in Happy Feet (whales and sea lions doing what comes naturely--trying to eat penguins) and that is fine with me. But here's what set my lips pursing and hands wringing with my fairly sheltered 4 y.o. sitting next to me:

* A trailer for Harry Potter. Of course I love Harry Potter, but this is dark stuff and not suitable for the little ones.

*One preview for a film due Christmas 2007 with Vince Vaughn & Paul Giametti about Santa Claus--obviously not being too reverent about Santa. I think X forgot about it quickly--I hope he did. But he may turn around and ask me why Santa was so grouchy and what's a "wet willie" anyway. With the level of scrutiny X gives to almost everything, I forsee some difficulty holding the Santa myth together for too many years--I don't need Hollywood's help eroding it.

*And what, I'm almost surprised to say, upset me the most; two films that show 'tween aged children "dissing" their parents or other adults. One is a movie called Unaccompanied Minors about kids stuck in an airpot behaving badly, creating havoc and burping a lot. Another is a film starring--I think--Ice-T about an African-American family that moves out to the country and struggles with a remodel and general acclimation to the bucolic life. It features two tween-aged children who roll their eyes, snicker and generally disrespect their parents at every turn. I know we were all embarrassed by our parents at some point, and I expect my kids will someday feel the same. But--I can't even believe I'm going to drop the V-Bomb--I don't like the values I see reflected in those previews. Yeah, they're just previews. But still--I'm not sure how else to defend my position except that I don't like what I saw and I don't want my kid to get to/aspire/emulate it.

I don't think my mother was ever this uptight, so it must be the Church Lady I'm morphing into. If you see me prancing about with a handbag, hairnet and support hose, please slap me.