Family?
ABC Family is a basic cable channel (number 52 where I live). They air shows like 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls, Sabrina The Teenage Witch and ancient reruns of Full House. It’s a channel in a cluster of other “kid-appropriate” channels that run from 51 (Animal Planet) to 55 (Disney Channel). In other words, our 9 year-old stepson knows that when he sits down to watch television, channels 51 to 55 are the green light channels, the only ones he is allowed to watch. And, being the very good boy he is, he sticks to those channels religiously.
So, why did I turn on the television last night to find The Sixth Sense playing on Channel 51, the one labeled ABC Family? Seriously. Sunday night, at 7:00.
Great movie. Awesome twist. NOT FOR KIDS! So what if Haley Joel Osment is the star. Who cares that he was, what, eleven when he made the movie? That doesn’t mean it’s OK for children. That little girl in Poltergeist was probably only ten or eleven, but does that suddenly make it a family film?
I thought maybe I was overreacting, that I had forgotten most of the movie, that maybe it was, in fact, just fine for kids. And because my stepson wasn’t around last night, I started watching it. Turns out, there are many scenes in the movie that are incredibly scary. Like the one where the kid sees the dead ghosts hanging from their necks in the hallway at school. Or the one where the dead woman turns around in the kitchen to expose her bare arms that have been cut around the wrists and are bleeding. Or how about the one where the little girl who died from being poisoned by her mother shows up under the bed, green foam dripping out of her mouth?
I have no idea what the film is rated, but I do know, without a doubt, it shouldn’t be airing on ABC Family. What is with trying to make our children grow up so fast!? I understand that a good portion of kids now are so desensitized by television and video games and what not, but shit. You know we’re really in trouble when The Sixth Sense qualifies as Sunday night sit-down for families.
I blame Michael Jackson. He started it with his freaky Thriller video in the ’80’s. That thing gave me nightmares for months. Now we’ve replaced The Man From Snowy River with The Sixth Sense. “Come on, honey. Sit down and watch this truly terrifying film right before bed. Oh, and ‘Sweet Dreams!’”
March 19th, 2007 13:06
Perhaps they could play the Exorcist next Sunday. :O
March 20th, 2007 15:25
I found your site via Memoirs of a Dysfunctional Housewife.
I am totally with you on the ABC family prob. They have been getting a little too loose in their movies as of late.
The sixth sense is NOT, a kids movie. NOT a family movie (unless your kids are in the late teens or above).
This kind of thing erks me.
May 21st, 2007 07:53
I just Googled “The Sixth Sense” and “ABC Family” to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating that this very creepy movie was on that channel. You are not alone in your horror (no pun intended). That movie still haunts me and is certainly inappropriate for a channel that should limit itself to cute Amanda Bynes movies, not dead people hanging in hallways.