Unsuitable viewing 80/90's

[Calistano]

Did anyone else watch wildly unsuitable things as a child? Was it common or accepted in that time period? I loved twin peaks and house of cards first time round and never questioned it, until I rewatched and realised I was frigging 10 when they came out. Obviously was also subjected to horror films, tbf the one that traumatised me most was at a neighbours house.

We watched 'Day of the Triffids' as a family - to be honest I found it a bit daft at the time.

Later, reading the book as a teenager I thought the idea of almost everyone going blind overnight was far more frightening than killer plants, and the novel would probably have been better without the Triffids in it!

@powershowerforanhour I’m originally from the North west and thought the same about Bergerac and Magnum, it was such escapism to see beaches and, well, sun 😂

I remember The Bangkok Hilton - NK was tricked into carrying drugs and imprisoned - there was a very sad bit where a friend she'd made in prison and her learning-disabled brother were executed.

Yep, was watching all those programmes from around the age of seven! Loved it, staying up late sitting on the sofa watching tv with my mum, knowing that most of my class mates were in bed at 7!

Thats the programme I was going to say. I’ve never forgotten it as it creeped me out so much. The dolls…..

Loved Maelstrom and Lace. I remember watching them with the whole family, riveted to our sofa.
And also Howard’s Way and Bergerac for the same reasons as pps! It was another world.

Ha maybe they thought too much .. sex or maybe you would be a drunk like Sue Ellen .😁

@Iwouldlovetohavecheekbones
Forgot about Bergerac! The whole family loved that. And the Holiday programme. We'd all watch that every week, a sundrenched feast for our starved Northern Irish eyes all winter watching Jill Dando stroll through bright Mediterranean streets and walk on blinding white sand to a warm blue sea ... then go on holiday in Donegal for a week in the summer. Sand, tick, sea...grey and cold, possibly rain lashed.

My mum loved horror stuff, so I was brought up on a diet of hammer house of horror, tales of the unexpected etc. Equally she loved panorama and world in action, so I watched those too, regardless of their topic. She also loved James Cagney films, so did I, I was in love with him 😂
Then my parents bought a video player in the very late seventies and they used to rent a couple of videos on a Saturday night, which were mostly horror such as nightmare on elm Street, Texas chainsaw killers, I spit on your grave etc. Scum was and still is, my favourite.
My mum always put nibbles out to eat while we were viewing, so dad would be sat with his beer, mum with her wine and us kids with softies and a cushion to hide behind, chomping away on the nibbles while someone was being slaughtered or something.
I can't say it had a negative effect on any of us.
To be fair, my parents never banned us from watching anything on the TV.
My youngest granddaughters favourite film is Grease, she often watches the DVD. A girl after my own heart.

Not quite the same experience here as definitely no horror stuff, but I don't think anyone in my family has ever been into it.

Everything else a bit early, yes. My theory is that it's because the ratings were meaningless before 12A was introduced- there's such a gulf between PG and 15 that plenty of supposedly 15 rated films were fine for a 9 year old back then.

Saw loads of 15 & probably 18 films with our babysitter at about 7 or 8!

I watched the nightmare on elm streets around the age of ten (not sure parents knew)!

They let me watch dirty dancing and the delinquents at 13 and the accused at 15.

Spot on

I think as well as the ratings being different, there were far fewer options, we got a VCR in about 1981 which is also about when Channel 4 started but before that there were 3 channels of live TV so if your parents wanted to watch something unsuitable you were likely to see it. No recording it to watch after the DCs are in bed, although I guess the 9pm watershed was adhered to. But once we were old enough to be up after 9 at weekends that was it really, what they watched we watched. I was early teens when Threads came out, we were discussing it at work when the new threads SM came out a few weeks ago, I never did see it and am glad, it sounds horrific. I don’t watch horror at all nowadays, haven’t since I was a teen/young adult.

This is a good point. There's a TikTok video that's been doing the rounds on Twitter over the last day, which I won't link to, but I genuinely fear for teenage girls who see this and take inspiration from it. I mean, Threads scarred me for years, but the impact stuff like this on TikTok will have is next level.

@808KateO What sort of thing is it?

@Iwouldlovetohavecheekbones Anorexia.

The Delinquents was one of the first 12 rated films for cinema release, although it was 15 on video as 12 hadn't then been introduced for video.

@Alycidon now u say it that rings a bell. Loved that film

I still haven't seen it, though I now feel I'd like to.

I was 15 when it came out, and my cinema-going chums of the same age and I were very much of the mindset that having waited 15 years, we wouldn't watch anything rated less than 15 at the cinema, including 12s as they'd come too late for us to benefit!

The arrogance of youth!