Yippee Ki-Yay Christmas - Die Hard for Kids
It’s the holiday season and the number one question on everyone's mind? Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? Before we answer this question. The more pressing question for me is, should I let my kids watch Die Hard? Yippee ki-yay…
As my daughters are getting older, I’ve noticed their interests in entertainment are changing. They’re less interested in the shows targeted for kids and more drawn to content with drama, action and more complex themes. So monitoring what they watch has become a little more of a task. I’ve overheard some of the content that has caused my ears to perk up and ask “what are you watching?” to which I’ve had to say “find something else.” This has resulted in paying more attention to the content ratings of what they watch and has me thinking about all of it.
For instance, at the beginning of an episode of the Lost in Space reboot on Netflix the content warning in the upper left corner said “Peril”. Peril? I found it interesting that a show about a family lost in space needed to caution parents that the show contained danger. Even more ironically, a series that coined the famous tagline, “Danger, danger Will Robinson!”. Are peril and danger really elements needing content warnings? What do any of these ratings mean?
Let's hit the rewind button quickly. I want to tell you two stories from my childhood. The first was when I was about seven years old. I had just learned about a character from a movie called Indiana Jones. My neighbor and friend Nathan was going to watch the second installment of the franchise - Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom. To my seven year old mind this sounded incredible. I was like other seven year olds and loved all of the typical seven year old things. Combat, action sequences, danger and blood and gore. Something titled the ‘Temple of Doom’ sounded right up my alley. However, my parents felt otherwise and told me that I was not allowed to watch it. I would need to wait until I was older, something to the effect of it was too scary and I would have nightmares - perhaps there was too much peril. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This was not a suitable answer as my neighbor friend told me all about Indiana Jones and his adventures. From explosions to guns to good guys and bad guys, he built it up to a point that I had to know more. So I devised a plan to where I would watch the movie from the window outside the front of his apartment. We lived in a big courtyard with all of the apartments facing in. They had one of those giant box-like big screens. The kind that are the size of a fireplace, with a thick wood border around it and sit directly on the floor. Luckily this media behemoth stood facing the large living room window and out into the courtyard where I could stand and watch. It was risky and would require a slight element of peril but I was seven years old and living my best PG life.
I remember this day very well. I had a plastic white sword that I had gotten from the circus. It had a silver hilt and a circular emblem of a clown in the middle. On my way to the window movie premier, I sword fought the trees, bushes, and any other imaginary foes who got in my way. I was the precursor hero to the action filled saga I was about to witness. I was excited to find out all there was to know about this temple of doom.
I arrived in time to see the outline of the back of my friend's head popping up from the lazyboy in front of the window and the glow of the large box directly in front of him. The title screen appeared and for the next two hours I stood watching Indiana Jones number two from outside his front porch. Plastic sword in hand. Yippee ki-yay.
As the movie was wrapping up, I heard the voice of my mother call from behind me. “Paul, what are you doing?” The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I froze in place - “oh no!” I thought. I turned around with my sword, made a swashbuckling move and said that I was playing. This is where the memory ends. I’m not sure if my mother knew what I was actually doing but I don't remember getting into trouble. All I remember is a guy ripping out the heart from someone's chest. It was awesome and terrifying or was it perilous? I don't know, they didn’t have the same kind of warnings back then.
The second story takes place roughly a year or two later. I was at a sleepover with a friend from school. I was in the third grade and was staying at my friend Zack's house. I always liked going to his house after school because his dad had all of Michael Jackson's CD’s as well as Shaq's rap album that we would crank all the way up to 11.
On this particular Friday night we were enjoying a classic 1990’s sleepover- Pizza Hut, Sega Genesis games (including Shaq Fu) and getting ready to make our way through the stack of Blockbuster videos that rested on the top of the VCR. Zack grabbed the first one and slid the thick plastic brick into the machine.
The title of the movie appeared on the screen, Return of the Living Dead 3. I felt a knot in my stomach form. You know the kid growing up who was allowed to watch R rated movies? That was Zack. There was a firm order in place with my parents that I was only allowed to watch G and PG rated movies. This wasn’t even PG-13. We were skipping a whole new level straight to the top. I thought about telling my friend that I could get into trouble but my curiosity was stronger than my ethics. As the movie played I was met with a mix of all kinds of thoughts and feelings. A scene with a naked girl showing her breasts made me excited and embarrassed. It was the first nudity that I remember seeing. The zombies were gross and cool and scary. The adrenaline that was coursing through my body crescendoed when a zombie jumped out and started eating a guy's brains. I felt exhilarated, entertained, guilty and horrified. My first experience with a horror movie was truly unforgettable.
For my friend Zack these movies were part of a normal Friday night because after the movie was over, he plopped in the next rental- Leprechaun. That night I barely slept. When I did I was cast into a world of nightmares. Too scared to dream, too scared to stay awake. While I dont think seeing either of these movies had negative impacts on my life, I’m not going to show them to my kids at the same age.
Fast forward and I now have my own 10 and 11 year old daughters and oftentimes find myself on the other side of the equation. What do I let them watch? What is appropriate? Is there a hard and fast rule of only certain rated shows or movies?
‘Appropriate’ is circumstantial. What might be appropriate for one child may not be appropriate for another. What was appropriate for a seven year old in the early 90’s may not be inappropriate in 2024 or vice versa. While I would say no to Return of the Living Dead 3 for my kids, I have watched all of the Indiana Jones movies with them. The first one I tested on my older daughter because she too had heard of the wonders of this magical movie and begged to watch it. I told her that there were some scary scenes and that there was some blood and gore that might give her nightmares. I asked if she was okay with it and she assured me she was ready. The blood and gore used to make movie magic in the late 80’s and early 90’s is now almost comical. When the movie ended, she didn’t hesitate, “Daddy, can we watch the next one?”. She was hooked.
The challenge lies in the way we think about what information and content we want our young children to absorb. I can assure you there were no content warnings in 1990 for “peril” or “intense battle sequences”... (is that a warning or advertisement?)
I recently was scrolling through Netflix and put on the movie Monuments Men with George Clooney and Matt Damon. When the title screen appeared with the little content rating in the top left corner I literally laughed out loud when the rationale for the PG-13 rating was “Some images of violence, war and….. (get this) historical smoking”. Historical smoking? Historical smoking. Get the fuck out of here. What person takes their life so seriously that they felt the need to warn parents that there are scenes in which people from the 1940’s smoked cigarettes?
The show Our National Parks, narrated by former President Barack Obama is a five part documentary series that takes you all over the world to some of the most amazing preserved places in nature. It is rated TVPG for “fear”.
One of my favorite warnings however, is “thematic elements”. What does that even mean? I’ll tell you. It means nothing. “Nonsense, nonsense Will Robinson”.
Today, the traditional rating system is arbitrary. There is TV-Y, TV-Y7, TV-Y7 FV, TV-G, TV-PG, TV-14, TV-MA. These are only the TV ratings. Movies still have the good ole G, PG, PG13, R, NC-17 and Unrated. Now that streaming services have taken over and movies are not exclusively shown in the theaters, what is the difference between a TV-14 movie that Netflix produces and a PG-13 movie made by Disney or Universal? Can you argue that there is a maturity level one reaches at the age of 14 vs 13 that can handle certain content? What thematic elements are they putting in these movies anyway?
There is actually an answer to that question. The MPAA or Motion Picture Association of America is a trade association formed in 1922 that is made up of the largest movie studios and now Netflix. I won’t go down the rabbit hole on this because it is deep and there are more important topics at hand that we still haven't gotten to like, whether or not DieHard is a Christmas movie.
But let's hit the pause button for a minute to provide some backstory and context.. In 1999, Tre Parker and Matt Stone released the South Park Movie. The film was quickly given an NC-17 rating because of the content. What this means is that even if you have cool parents like Zach who let you watch whatever you want, the theater will not let anyone under 17 into the movie even with parental supervision. The problem with the rating South Park Movie was given was that it was a death blow to its potential in the box office. A movie with an NC17 rating (what some of you may remember as “X Rated'' before it was changed in 1969) not only won't perform well in the theaters but it also creates a stigma. Nobody goes to see an NC17 rated movie. Yet millions of people were and still are huge fans of South Park. If you want to know where the story goes and more about the MPAA and rating systems, watch “This Film Is Not Yet Rated”.
In the meantime, The boob-tube as my Nana used to call it sits there beckoning my children daily like a hypnosis machine. Endless amounts of content that they can dive into and would watch for days on end if allowed. I often find myself less concerned with what my kids are watching and more concerned with how much they are watching.
My question of whether or not I let my kids watch DieHard was a bit rhetorical. It has already been asked and answered. Last Christmas we were looking for something to watch as a family and the little box with the picture of a bruised and shirtless Bruce Willis popped up. I was not in the mood for another PG christmas movie full of themed elements and selfishly I wanted to watch something more adult so DieHard it was. My only concern was I couldn’t remember if there were any sex scenes in the movie. The violence and language in my opinion weren’t that much different than the countless Marvel movies we’ve seen as a family but if anyone has ever had the experience of watching a movie as a kid with your parents and a sex scene comes on, it's utterly unforgettably uncomfortable. I wanted to spare my daughters from that but now that I think of it I have to wonder if that is a right of passage? Luckily the R rated warning at the start of the movie didn’t have any cues about sexual content. So I was grateful for the rating system to be in place as a parent to give me an idea of what I could expect. (Parent hint: if you ever want to have a more detailed idea of the content in a movie go to IMDB.com and you can scroll down to the Parent’s Guide and it will categorize all of the content with a breakdown).
The girls were enamored the entire time. They loved the iconic scenes of John McClane walking on glass, crawling through air ducts and my favorite, the note written in blood on the dead terrorist “Now I have a machine gun. Ho Ho Ho.” Classic! The fact that this was the first R rated movie my daughters ever got to watch was also a significant detail not lost on them. After the movie ended my older daughter looked at me with excitement and said “Is the second one rated R too?”
When I was about my daughter's age I remember walking into the living room where the Christmas tree was lit in the corner and the smell of a fern candle filled the air. The stockings were hung and there was a fresh layer of snow outside that twinkled in the moonlight. The house was quiet and my dad was in the recliner and had just turned on a movie. I asked if I could watch it with him and he hesitated a moment and then said yes. The scene opened up and the title of the movie appeared. Die Hard. So is Die Hard a Christmas movie? I vote Yippee ki “yay”...
