In a previous blog post, I set out a premise for how to choose good family movies. The final point in that brief introduction to the topic was that we can choose to be choosy in our movie watching habits. To continue with this series, I’ve felt it appropriate to present an article that was published by one of my university professors now ten years ago. The advice is sound and still as applicable today as it was 10 years ago. Perhaps even more so now!
Where’s the list?
It’s possible that someone coming to this blog is looking for a list of good family movies to watch. So where’s the list? Well, there isn’t one. To just compile a list of films that would be safe for a family to watch would be to skirt around the heart of the issue. How are you going to choose a good family movie to watch if I’m not going to tell you where to look?
A list doesn’t empower us to be choosy, or wise consumers of media. In fact, we live in a day and age where there is so much good media to choose from that a list would only be limiting choice. To become empowered to make good choices in family movie consumption, we have to first agree to receive a little bit of education. Education in being entertained? Yes, it does sound like a oxymoron to Nth degree. However, I promise that choosing to subject yourself to just a little bit of eduction on the topic will prove to vastly improve your entertainment experience. In other words, your entertainment will become more entertaining.
Passive vs. Active Movie Watching
It is a strange phenomenon to the neighborhood children that visit our home to not have a television set as the center of focus in our family room. One day, a young seven-year-old neighbor was in our home and after a few moments, she declared in something of an exacerbated tone of voice, “I just don’t get it! What do you guys do for fun around here without a TV? ”
On the opposite side of the coin, our own children come home from friends houses’ talking about how strange it is that their friends spend all day playing video games or watching TV. This is caused by our actively choosing to not have a television set as the center of focus in our living space. We do have DVDs and Internet video streaming. We choose to be actively conscientious about how we consume our entertainment. Hence, becoming actively engaged in the movie viewing process is an important part of creating a good family viewing environment for movies.
To learn more the topic of choosing good family movies to watch, read Family Home Media by Dean Duncan.
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