Parenting Teens: The Dark Knight

Not being an early adapter I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight. I have to say this is an excellent movie both as entertainment and as something to ponder over later.

As a parent with teens, it also is a movie to think about. My 13 year old will not be seeing this movie. Not for the usual reasons. There are no bad words that I recall (although sometimes I just don’t hear them. I told a friend that Thirteen Days was verbally clean and after seeing it with her child, she assured me it was not clean at all.) There are no sex scenes, which is nice because if there were I would not have seen it period. It is violent in the Hitchcockian sense, scary and implied. No blood and lots of buildings get blown to bits. I enjoy seeing buildings blow up. Bad thing happen to a lot of people but there are no body parts flying around.

My 13 year old will not be seeing it because it really is very dark. I don’t think she has the life experiences to process this movie as anything but entertainment. I don’t want her to be exposed to this type evil and see it as just entertaining.

For the older teens, I think this is a great discussion movie. For parent in general and Christian parents in particular, if your kid is going/has gone to see this movie, don’t waste the opportunity to talk to them about it. This movie is one of those rare cultural events that offer parents of older teens a chance to discuss worldview without the kids realizing what you are up to . Do not kid yourself as a parent, your child will act on that is in his heart in a time of crisis.A couple of years age, a teen in my community, driving drunk flipped his car. The car landed on one of the passengers. The boy was still alive but the kids in the car abandoned him to return to the party house and clean it before the police arrived. No one called 911. They left that child to die alone. A passerby in another car call. You can make excuses for what those kids chose to do and why. Excuses will not mitigate against the evil of their choice. Crisis often revels that is in a heart. The Dark Knight offers parents a chance to see what is in their child's heart.

What choice would you make if you were on the boat? Why? Is the Joker evil or just crazy? How does bitterness shape one of the main characters response to another’s evil or craziness? If not bitterness in the face of evil, then what?

For Christian parents: How does knowing that God is Sovereign affect how you think about the choices the character’s make in the movie? Does good have to pretend to be evil in order to be effective?

Of course, if you are going to discuss you have to be willing to listen and try not to correct right away if you don’t like what you hear. Always hard for me.

Comments

[sasha]

I haven't seen this movie yet. It's really good to know there are no sex scenes. I am planning to watch it with my family so I need to know if there are those kind of scenes before going ahead. If there are, then scratch that movie. I heard the movie really has a dark theme.

I love reading your take on the movie.