Baby Times: Emily's reaction to "Coraline" and other concerns

Thursday 15 October 2009

Emily's reaction to "Coraline" and other concerns

We watched Neil Gaiman's excellent "Coraline" on Blu-Ray last night. Even though I knew it was far removed from a children's film, I thought we could let Em see the first few minutes of it - every film has that peaceful, happy setup phase at the beginning.

We eventually put her to bed about 10 minutes in, but I have no idea what happened in the film as she was laughing so hard. I don't really know what it is about stop-motion animation that got her all giddy, but I couldn't hear any dialogue over her laughter. It was quite amusing.

It did get me to thinking though. What do children actually take in. I was worried that the darker undertones of the film would subconciously scar her for life, but I have a strange feeling now that all she would probably take in (if she watched the whole film) was the quirky animation, a talking cat and some other funny - hysterical - stuff happening on screen. Having said that, the spider woman that "Other Mother" morphs into kinda gave ME the creeps.

I don't really plan on making a habit of viewing R or even PG material with Em (we're happy with "In The Night Garden" at the moment), but her reaction did make me sit back and think.