Friday, August 22, 2003

The problem with the movie Thirteen is that it will make parents freak out. Parents will hear about the plot of this movie (even if they don't see it themselves) and think they have to supervise their daughters better, and then they will keep too tight a rein on normal, shy, awkward, confused adolescents who just want to spend a bit of time with their friends without their parents breathing down their neck. Normally-attentive and over-protective parents will supervise their kids even more, keeping them from having a normal social life and thus alienating them from the peer group and making them more inclined to indulge in risky behaviour when given the opportunity in order to assert their independence from the oppressive regime at home. Meanwhile neglectful parents, to whom the cautionary aspect of this tale was likely originally directed, are not likely to notice. This movie is a bad strategic move on the part of everyone involved.

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