Before I begin; let me say that I know there are people out there who have already labeled me a freak… with a capital F… and I’m really OK with that…
Now that that’s out of the way…
You will be hard pressed to find someone who loves Disney more than me (although I do have a good friend who loves Disney as much as I do… thank goodness, or we might drive everyone else crazy)! I love Disney characters… and parks… and jewelry and clothing… and music and movies… pretty much all things Disney…
Over time, we have slowly introduced our children to the Disney Classics and the Disney “Instant Classics” (just gotta love that concept)… And I think it’s pretty safe to say that they love Disney, too…
“Mulan”… one of my longstanding all time Disney favorites… has been sitting in the “view to see if we want to show the kids this” pile for quite some time now. Last night I had the opportunity to go to bed at 10:00 (rare occurrence, let me tell ya), but for a variety of reasons, I wasn’t all that tired. So I popped “Mulan” into my laptop and let it roll while I snuggled my sleepy little princess Miah…
It had probably been at least 7 years since I’d last viewed the film…
Now… the main reason that it has stayed in the “wait until later” pile for so long is that I distinctly remembered “the ancestors” as being a teaching point for older kids. I was actually pretty excited to get this one out and work through to an understanding about ancient Chinese customs and such, including family honor, and it didn’t hurt that the history of the Great Wall was also explored to a certain degree. But I knew, for sure, that Grace would have a difficult time with Mulan and her family praying to dead people, and I needed to remember just how prevalent this theme was. To my disappointment, it was more prevalent than I remembered. Of course, “Mulan” originally came out in 1998, so the first time I saw it, I was already 18. At almost 9, I knew Grace would have a different take on things… Still, the bulk of this theme is concentrated at the beginning of the film, and I felt with careful conversation I could both prepare her for it and explain why it was OK for us to watch this, particularly as a learning experience… (and everyone stops and wonders if Lisa is trying to rationalize this particular movie because she likes it so much… but I don’t think that’s the case)…
With my view clear on that aspect of the film, I thought to myself, “Great… we should be in the clear… ‘Mulan’ movie night, here we come… maybe sometime next week?” …
And then the other “little” issue began to surface, and am I ever glad that I didn’t just say, “Oh… forget the preview,” and sit down with my kids and the remote…
There are a lot of sexual references in “Mulan”… If you’re laughing so hard that tears are streaming down your face, just send me a complaint and stop reading. I’ll understand. But really…
Mushu (dead dragon, remember) runs into Mulan’s chest, and she smacks him… He also tells Mulan that men like it when you smack their butts… and so Mulan does (now, seriously, I do not expect that Grace would start smacking little boys’ butts because of this, but if she did… well… I’d have a heck of a lot of explaining to do…) In addition, we have a bath scene at the beginning of the movie where Mulan is covered well by bubbles and her hair, but would I let my kids watch this in live action? And perhaps the most significant scene is where Mulan is bathing in a lake and several men join her (not knowing, of course, that she is a woman) for a swim. As Mulan escapes behind a bath towel and her horse, she says something to the effect of, “I never want to see a naked man again,” at which point a whole heard of naked men run by and Mulan’s eyes pop out of her head. Of course, we don’t see anything… but come on… we know what she saw…
So today, our family had lunch at the park. This was my first opportunity to tell Phil what I thought about the movie, and I simply said, “They can’t watch ‘Mulan’.” Phil looked highly surprised, which I found funny, because I consider him to be even more selective about what they’re viewing than I am (he may disagree about this). He asked, “Not even Seth and Grace,” to which I answered, “No,” and began to relay to him the things I just wrote here. And as we chuckled about all of the “bad” parts of the movie, he asked, “So… 13?” And I laughed harder… and so did he… as we declared this “G” rated movie a “PG-13” at our house…
Maybe we’re crazy… I’m pretty sure the birthday party attendant on Saturday must have thought so when she announced that we were going to play hot potato and listen to Miley Cyrus music and Grace and her best friend exclaimed, “Who’s Miley Cyrus?” (Followed by another party guest revealing that Miley is Hannah Montana and Grace and her friend being just as unimpressed as they were with Miley…)
We’re not trying to keep our kids in a bubble… hard as it may seem to comprehend that based on what I just wrote… But is there anything wrong with letting them be kids?
Seth (10) and Grace (8) have friends with cell phones… facebook accounts… and keys to the house. And I am so pleased that they still play with matchbox cars and My Little Ponies (well… let me clarify… Seth does not play with My Little Ponies… just Grace). I am completely ready to let them grow up when it’s time, but I do not want them to be jaded about everything “fun” in exchange for anything and everything they shouldn’t be involved in. There is a time for everything… and at 10 and 8, it’s still time to be a kid!
So bring on the go karts… and the video games… and the bowling parties… We will continue to build with Legos… and listen to Adventures in Odyssey… and laugh at old Herbie Movies and Jetsons reruns until they figure out that Mom isn’t really that cool… and then we’ll deal with the “coming of age” that comes with growing up… and hope that by the time Mushu instructs Grace on what men want, she’ll have a better concept of how ridiculously funny his lines are…
Lisa
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