Batman's Kiss

One night at bedtime Luke prayed to “stop thinking about that thing I’m thinking about.” I asked if he wanted to share what was on his mind, but he said no. The next night he prayed again, “Don’t let me think about that thing I was thinking about last night.” Eventually I pried out his worry. Evidently he had seen a Batman cartoon where an evil woman kissed Batman with poison on her lips, and Luke couldn’t get that image out his mind. This, he explained, was the reason he wasn’t letting me kiss him goodnight any more. And here I had worried that seeing Star Wars was going to ruin him.

Maybe the Waldorf people are right that we should shield children from all media, but I for one haven’t managed it. I’ve tried to pursue what I consider a moderate course, sticking mostly to short doses of PBS with the occasional wholesome video from the library on Friday night. The fact that Megan is prone to nightmares helps us steer clear of the scarier films Luke would choose if left to his own devices.

Finding films that don’t have anything scary is harder than one might think. It pretty much rules out anything by Disney. For a while we were relying on old musicals like Singin’ in the Rain and Meet Me in St. Louis. But as I started checking out the musicals I loved as a child I was horrified to realize how sexist most of them were. I couldn’t let my children watch My Fair Lady without delivering a running commentary on class and gender.

And then there were the racist films. I turned off Babes in Arms when Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland started performing in black face. I don’t know what I was thinking when I got Annie Get Your Gun, a film that’s sexist, racist and full of guns. All I had remembered were the songs. All Luke remembered were the guns. I shouldn’t have been surprised. When Luke was two we watched The Sound of Music, and a few days later he shouted, “Let’s play Nazis!” He then raised his arm and yelled “Heidler Hitler” repeatedly as I chased him around the playground, earnestly insisting that this was Not an OK to say.

Since then I’ve come to accept that young boys are just interested in what Obi-wan calls “The Dark Side,” although I don’t like using light and dark to represent good and evil. I’ve tried to protect Luke from violent images without shaming him for wanting to see them. In fact that’s how Luke ended up seeing Batman to begin with. A few years ago, when all Luke’s best friends were talking about Batman incessantly, I borrowed a Batman cartoon from the library, previewed it, and picked out a part that Luke could see to get an idea of what Batman was like without seeing any of the violence. I thought this was pretty evolved of me and the best way to ease his obsession. However, the next Sunday at Quaker meeting I discovered Luke had build a Batmobile out of kids chairs and was teaching a friend who went to the Waldorf school all about Batman. Oops.

So a few weeks ago, when Luke was at the library with his dad, he saw the Batman video I had borrowed a few years ago and said, “Can I get this? Mom let me see it,” without explaining that I had only let him see selected bits. So that was how Luke ended up with a Batman video that included an evil woman kissing Batman with poison on her lips. Maybe he’ll be scarred for life and grow up to be a misogynist, like Henry Higgens in My Fair Lady, but I hope not. I hope being able to talk about what he’s seen and what he imagines will help him work through his fears.

For Halloween he’s going to be a Ninja, though without the sword, which Target sells separately.