Son of Rambow Reponse - What Am a Childrens?

As we approach the realm of children's media, off we must madly go again into the circling realm of semantical discussion. "What is a child?" they ask. Present in this question are a fistful of compelling concepts: maturity, corruptability, and accountability. Examples abound on both sides of the spectrum, in which children percieved to be plagued by mature, violent content, act out in violence against others, yet a preponderance of youth can go outwardly unaffected by graphic imagery or heavy thematic material. Most importantly, lack of parental guidance in selection of media,  a child's ability to comprehend the intensity, horror, or morals the media presents, and psychological development can affect the potency of such imagery. In the light-hearted mood of Garth Jennings's indie sleeper hit Son of Rambow, we get to look at this question through the eyes of a fictionalized youth remaking - or swede'ing - the bloody 80s blockbuster, Rambo: First Blood.

After an arrangement with the Lee Carter, the school bully, Will Proudfoot, a sheltered boy from a fundamentalist Christian family, agrees to act as a stunt man in a movie to enter an amateur film festival. The movie in question is First Blood, a movie which hardly is for children's eyes, let alone his precious virgin eyes. His parents and his community reject media depictions entirely as heathen, and all attempts to view it stem from the devil's temptations. So, for Will, his watching of First Blood - likely over and over - was about as horrifying as it was magical. He ascends in scale from 0-100 with a great deal of difficulty along the way, as he must pursue his short-term goal in secret from friends, authorities, and his own family.

As Will and Lee continue in a loose friendship/acquaintance they run into trouble with popular school kids and staff, usually resorting to violence, a language which Lee and Will they have gained a great deal of credence from abusive paternal relationships, and media choices, respectively. The continued level of abuse apparent in the Carter family can be deduced not to come from media depictions of violence, but from parental neglect. Realizing the sad state of affairs of their own parental neglect, Will's family leaves the strict Christian sect, so that she can mitigate his participation with media.

I would suggest that childhood is an objective state that may appear consciously in adults as a recollection period. Children are greatly susceptible to graphic depictions of language, sex, and violence, particularly if it the depictions do not lay out consequences. In most cases, I would suggest that PG-13 violence does greater harm to 13 year olds than R-rated violence, because PG-13 conveniently leaves out the gory details of firing machine guns into large crowds. R-rated content is wasted on the old because it depicts ideas they yet understood, when it could be greatly effectual to children who would wish to avoid such perils.