Averting Kids’ Obsession with Movie Characters

                                   Conner                                             Andrew

Averting Kids’ Obsession with Movie Characters

Movies are veritable tools of educating and imparting good morals and virtues to the public. They play a very important role in effecting social change as they open the eyes of the people to the negative effects of vices in the society, with the capability of causing perpetrators to have a rethink. The movie industry is able to have a strong impact on the people because it is an industry loved and patronised by many, irrespective of age, sex, tribe or religion. Many people love to watch movies at their leisure for the reason that aside from being entertained, they learn one or two lessons from them.

Unfortunately, home videos have been discovered to have a negative effect on children who are obviously too young to understand the moral lessons that many of the movies are aimed at teaching. Their minds are young and inquisitive, so they easily absorb anything that tickles their fancy. The actors make great impressions on the kids, and the next thing they know is that they want to imitate their heroes. So, they embark on actions that they shouldn’t do, or that are extremely dangerous for kids. These actions could result in serious injuries or even death.

There was an instance of a boy in Zaria who wanted to mimic the supermen he had been watching in the movies. Supermen are known to perform extraordinary feats like flying to rescue even a plane in distress, or saving the lives of victims trapped in high-rise buildings raging with inferno. But it was the flying nature of the supermen that caught the fancy of that young boy most. So, one morning, he dressed like one of the supermen with a piece of cloth strapped to his shoulders stretching down to the back of his knees. In his own thinking, it is the piece of cloth which normally flutters in the air when supermen are airborne that aids the aerodynamics. Having donned the body fitting attire with the piece of cloth in place, the boy climbed a fence nearby and uttered a kind of magic word his hero in the film normally lets out before taking off. He then leapt into the air. But lo and behold, instead of being in flight, he came crashing to the ground. From a height of about 10 feet, he was lucky to survive the heavy fall. Neighbours who heard him screaming for help rushed to the scene and quickly rushed him to the hospital where an X-ray test showed he had fractured his chest bones in addition to breaking his arms and clavicles. For his folly, he spent several weeks in the hospital and his parents also paid heavily for letting him become so obsessed with supermen and not counselling him against venturing into their make-believe supernatural exploits.

And last week, I read about a teenage boy who strangled his younger brother in Ohio, USA, saying he was inspired by a TV series. The 17-year-old boy, Andrew Conley, told detectives that he identified with the character from the hit TV series about a police forensic expert who moonlights as a serial killer. He actually told the police that he had wanted to kill someone for years! He was playing around with his brother Conner when he suddenly locked his hands around his neck. He told the police that he strangled his 10-year-old brother with his bare hands for 20 minutes to make sure he was dead! Then, he stuffed his body in a rubbish bag and dumped him in a park near their home before driving to his girlfriend’s home where they watched a film.

Confessing to killing his brother, Andrew said he had an uncontrollable urge for murder and wanted to model himself after the TV serial killer Dexter. “I feel just like him”, he said in a court affidavit. He also likened his urge to kill to someone craving a hamburger. According to the Daily Mail of London, the hit TV series stars Michael C. Hall who doubles as a blood splatter expert working for Miami Police and also a serial killer who dispatches his victims in a gruesome manner. Hall was said to have won a Golden Globe award for his performance, but the TV show was criticised in the USA for its focus on violence by the Parents Television Council. The teenage murderer is facing a minimum of 45 years in prison, but prosecutors are said to be planning to seek a life sentence without parole.

Andrew Conley also confessed to investigators that earlier in the very morning that he killed his brother, he had thought of killing his father. He said he stood over his father’s bed with a knife in his hand as he contemplated killing him.

One of the prosecutors, Aaron Negangard said “It’s disturbing that a 17-year-old would want to kill under any circumstances, let alone his own brother”. He described Andrew as ‘emotionless’ throughout the police interview session with him. The report said that Conner’s murder by his brother Andrew was the second murder allegedly inspired by Dexter. In 2008, a 29-year-old Canadian, Mark Twitchell, was said to have mimicked a storyline from the drama when he allegedly killed 39-year-old Johnny Altinger.

That is the extent to which kids can go to be like their heroes. Since movies have been discovered to have such a strong impact on the lives of children, it has become imperative to monitor their interest in films in order to censor the kinds of movies that they watch. Whenever parents observe that their children are getting obsessed with some film actors and actresses, especially those acting violent and immoral scenes, they should get such obsession out of them without delay, by letting the kids know the dangers of imitating their heroes. Aside from counselling the kids, they should also pray for them because to successfully raise children these days requires God’s guidance.

As much as possible, children should not be left alone while watching films. An adult should be present to regulate what they watch. That’s why some films are rated PG which means parental guidance is required for kids to watch such movies. The age rating on films should also be adhered to, to ensure that kids below the specified ages are not allowed to watch them. Even when the age specification is complied with, certain immoral scenes should be avoided. Whenever such scenes are being played, the movie can be forwarded if it is on CD or VCD, and the channel can be changed if the film is being watched on TV or satellite TVs like DSTV. Same goes for extremely violent scenes which young minds should not watch so they don’t get bad ideas from there.

There are so many awful things on TV and in the movies these days that one wonders if the National Film Censors Board is still operating in this country. Our Nollywood is fast turning to Hollywood, and we cannot afford the kinds of things that the American society allows as a result of the freedom mentality of Americans. The Americans believe they are free to do anything, just anything under the sun, and decorum is most times compromised on the altar of freedom. They can have sex on set and we are not talking about pornographic films. I think there is enough sex in pornographic films for whoever wants to watch such to go for. We don’t want to watch sex scenes in normal movies like bestsellers, adventures, action films, etc., neither do we want to expose our children to such immorality. But that’s what we get mostly these days as our filmmakers make frantic efforts to imitate Hollywood. When a man and a woman, young or old, end up in bed, we know exactly what they are about to do. We don’t have to watch them in the very act. So, the filmmakers should stop showing us those offensive sex scenes.

If you look at the American society, you will find that many youths are into crime, drugs and immoral behaviours including sexual perversions, and they even come out openly to claim and defend such immoral status. These evils are everywhere I admit, but they are on a larger scale in America. They get inspired to engage in these vices from their free nature as well as their films. It does not augur well for our nation to expose the youths into such. And so, our filmmakers must produce decent films and shun destructive tendencies like prolonged party scenes showcasing immoral dances, sex scenes, unnecessarily long kissing and caressing sessions, actresses’ indecent dressings which expose their breasts with tattoos on the breasts and other sensitive parts of their bodies such as the back waistline, in order not to pollute the minds of the youths who look up to these movie stars as role models. The Film Censor’s Board must be alive to its responsibilities and really censor films before they are released into the market to protect our future leaders.

By Nike Oluwole.

(First published on September 30, 2010)