Culture you inbibed as a kid that you find inappropriate for kids these days:

Beauty and the Beast. My two daughters watched it, after insisting I buy it, and then asked me to throw it in the bin. It really is a lesson in Stockholm Syndrome.

The Back to the future films are awesome, my teenage dd has watched them several times. I think they might be a bit complicated for a 4 year old though.

Btw, I've actually seen the Krankies live. Bet you're all jealous 😉

Fairfax - to be fair, it's still a bit iffy in the original timeline. George was in the tree because he was spying on her getting dressed in her bedroom. Something that he's apparently never confessed to in all their years of marriage, given the breakfast conversation at the beginning! So he's "rewarded" for spying by being nursed by Lorraine and marrying her. Of course, their marriage in the original timeline isn't a particularly happy one.

I think that on the commentary track for Back to the Future they mention that they had a hard time selling the script, because it wasn't raunchy enough for most studios (popular comedies at the time were more "adult" sexual humour like Porky's) and Disney, as the "family friendly" studio, felt that it was inappropriate because it had Marty's mum fancying and pursuing her own son!

Personally it's been a favourite of mine since childhood, but I'm not sure at what age I first saw it. But it's always been a PG not a U, so I can see that 4 might be too young?

I'm not sure about the sexual politics of the sexual assault. Biff is unambiguously the bad guy, and it's pretty clear that Lorraine is fighting against him and George is perceived as the "hero" by all the other students when he stops Biff. I'm not sure that's bad in itself. And as I child I think I read it as "Biff wants to kiss Lorraine, but she doesn't like him so she tries to stop him. It's ok for her to want to kiss someone she likes (Marty), but she can refuse someone she doesn't like and is helped when that happens". I don't think that's a bad message!

But on the other hand, Lorraine wanting to kiss Marty when he's clearly incredibly uncomfortable about it, and aggressively pursuing him, is not ok! And it's not great that Marty's plan to help George involves "fake" harassment, even if he couldn't go through with it in the end. It's implied that he'd be ok with acting out the part of a sexual assaulter in order to give George a chance to "come to the rescue". He's not comfortable with it, but it's ambiguous whether that's because of the assault itself or specifically because it's his mother.

Iwasjustabout if you say composing a song about a violent abuser is normalising (and I don't agree on this point) and seeing as normalising violence is problematic, then what does that entail? Should artists only focus on the positive aspects of life?

The sub plot in BTTF is how the geeky Dad cant stand up to the macho bully Biff. We watched it recently and I dont remember there being that much swearing in it. It didnt bother us but I thought they wouldnt be allowed to make that today.
You;re allowed to rape, stab and bludgeon women on screen but not say 'Oh God'.

The black and white minstrel show, Benny Hill, Till death do us Part, all dreadful.
Bernard Manning and other similar 'club' type comedians.

Mind Your Language
Dick Emery
Another vote for Benny Hill
Man About the House
Bless This House

I really adore the Beatles (I really do) but I can't explain away lyrics like "you better run for your life if you can, little girl. If I catch you with another man that's the end, little girl".
I don't see these lyrics as glorifying violence. If my kids asked about them, I'd say they're about a violent man who would kill his girlfriend if she left him. I'd go on to explain that these things really do happen and how horrific they are. I'd see it as an occasion to talk about the horrors that happen in real life, instead of pretending they don't exist.

She doesn't even seem bothered by the attack afterwards, like it's just a normal and expected part of being a woman.
It was set in 1955, so, yes.

Nothing wrong with Back to the Future.
You can explain the scene as unwanted physical contact to a 4 year old. It's not presented as normal or desirable, but as a bad thing.

I actually think overall that Back to the Future is a fairly positive film.
Yes, there’s a very bad character who nearly does a very bad thing but not everyone in life is good.
George has been bullied for a long time by Biff, but it’s finally thanks to his love for Lorraine that he is able to stand up to him, when he could so easily have walked away instead.

It shows the value of standing up for what’s right in that after he does that he has a much more positive and successful future.

Crumbs My kids read lots of fairy tales and watched Back to the Future, as well as loads of old movies. I think the whole idea of what is inappropriate at the moment is a bit off kilter.

Benny Hill 😲😲😲

Fairy stories evolved to enable children to develop the emotional ability to cope with the horrors of real life. Read Bettelheims ‘The uses of enchantment’. It provides a fascinating insight.

Far from shielding our children from all the unpleasantness that is humanity, we should be helping them explore it in a safe and supportive environment. Hence nursery rhymes (and other fiction). They take the truly awful and help children develop the skills to cope with that knowledge. Boy in striped pyjamas comes to mind as a more modern story that does likewise by reducing the unparalleled horrors of the holocaust into a format that children can deal with given opportunity to discuss and contextualise.
Nothing wrong with Children having knowledge if it’s presented in an accessible way.

Almost every black and white film ever.

Gone with the Wind. Rhett rapes Scarlett and the next morning bang! she’s in love with him.

The Beano. Not sure what current ones are like but DP still has his old annuals and they are sexist, racist & crypto-homophobic.

I don't think that my kids were hurt in any way by watching Back to the Future and listening to the Beatles, nor by reading Dr Dolittle (absolutely fantastic books, and I believe very anti-racist in philosophy, even though they come across as deeply racist in today's world).

Surely all fairy tales are inappropriate in today's world, with their sexist and classist overtones.

Religions also seem highly inappropriate to me- very very misogynistic.

The Krankies. Wtf was that about? That made me properly laugh out loud.

When 2 become 1 by the spice girls all those tweens singing it. I didn’t know what it was about.