CARS 2. I'm glad I didn't take my 3 year-old.

     This weekend I took my five-year-old and his buddy to see CARS 2.  Part way through the film I thought, "Is my kid going to have nightmares tonight?" 

     You may have already heard that the film is a bit mature for younger audiences.  A bit? I think some of it went over my head.  It has an espionage sub-plot which is much too advanced for your average McQueen fan.  And here's the other problem.  There is a lot of shooting going on, and (spoiler alert) at one point the "bad guys" are trying to kill McQueen with a bomb planted on his good buddy Mater.  I am not joking, people.

     The film is somewhat redeemed by its underlying message about the importance of alternative fuels and protecting the environment.  But this is not what my kid took from the show. 

     How do I know what Noah took from it?  Well, we decided to do a little journal about the movie, as a way for me to keep him doing some level of academic work through the summer.  On his first page he drew a car with a gun attached to it, and asked me how to write, "The cars could kill other cars."   I wondered to myself how I could make this sentence a little less violent. "How about, "The cars could SHOOT other cars,"" I suggested.  Isn't that SO much better?  Okay, so my husband has pointed out that it is not.  I might as well have suggested the other verbs that went through my head, like "maim" and "wound".   So now the first page of Noah's summer journal has something about shooting stuff on it.  Great.  Thank you , CARS 2.

     I have a few questions. To what extent should kids be exposed to this kind of stuff?  Our generation grew up playing with guns.  Does play any part in how we turned out?  I think that the kids are going to get exposed to this in some way, so does letting them watch a movie that includes this make me a bad parent?  Is gun-play almost like Barbies? ( Maybe not the greatest image but something that we can't escape?  Part of a child's cultural canon?) What do you think?  Is my kid going to be a better citizen if I don't let him use squirt guns?  Where should we draw the line?

     I'm not sure where I stand on all of this.  I'm just hoping they don't actually kill McQueen in CARS 3. I suppose they won't.  He is probably like the Jack Bauer of the Cars world.  I wonder what kind of near-death experience they can conjur up for him next time.  Something to look forward to, I suppose.