P
icture the scene. You’ve
settled into your cinema
seats, popcorn in
hand, all set to enjoy a
relaxing couple of hours watching
a feel-good family movie with your
children, aged 11 and 13. From the
trailers (and the film’s age rating), it
looked like you were in for a couple
of hours of hilarious, slapstick
comedy, perfect for brightening a
gloomy day. What could possibly
go wrong?
It all started to unravel with
the trailers. The first one featured
two men getting up to all sorts
of hijinks on a road-trip – images
of scantily clad women, sun
cream squirting suggestively onto
cleavage, and a clearly stoned
man smoking at a debauched-
looking party loomed large on the
screen. One of the scantily clad
women screeched, ‘I’m going to
party ’til I’m pregnant!’ So far, so
awkward. The next trailer was for
a parody version of ‘
Fifty Shades
of Grey
’, which was followed by a
trailer for a film about singletons
partying in New York, and featured
a woman flashing her ample
assets in return for free groceries
at the corner store, threatening
to ‘tit punch’ her friend, then
peeking up her friend’s dressing
gown and lamenting the lack of
grooming she saw there. My mild
embarrassment turned to full-on
squirming in my seat.
I breathed a big sigh of relief
when the main film came on, but
Everyone loves a trip to the cinema,
but choosing a film that is suitable for
your child can be a surprisingly tricky
business, says
Rachel Kenney
.
Parental
advisory
September 2016
37
