There are going to be nightmares

[howabout]

DH is watching Watership Down with our 4 year old DD.

What is wrong with the TV schedulers?

Im also a bit whaaaat?!?! about the amount of trauma suffered by people watching this film.
Sad, moving, tragic, real... but traumatizing, really?
We must be a hardened/heartless bunch here

Saying that, I did have to leave the room during The Lost Video scene of Steven Universe, when we see Rose Quarts for the first time.Blub

I watched it loads of times as a child and didn't find it scary till I was an adult.

I watched it with my 2 year old yesterday and he just kept saying awwwwww at the bunnies and only seemed a little worried at the beginning when the field turned red, but I think it was more the music that was playing. He went and played with his toys half way through though.

There are some lessons to be learnt watching Watership Down.

Nothing is wrong with the TV schedulers, I mean you don't have to let your children watch something just because it is broadcast on TV.

I watched this as a kid. I remember it being sad, but no more sad than Bambi. I always found the news, even John Craven's Newsround, much sadder, because that was real.

And no, I do not think only films that are suitable for young children should be on during the day.

I saw this as a child, but wasn't a little child.
Me and my friends were under the impression that this was the world we live in, it's what happens in the wild.
As parents you should check the suitability of a film, not just moan because you let your dc watch it and they were upset.
It's a film about nature, and nature isn't always nice.
Fancy a fluffy bunny film? I'm sure there's lots.

Meh, I read the book as a child of about 9 or 10. Didn't traumatise me at all. Though perhaps as I grew up in a farming community I was used to the idea that rabbits are vermin which destroy crops. And they're certainly not cute when in the throes of myxomatosis.

True, my family are farmers, so the idea of animals being killed was not new.

I thought there'd be a thread about this. My tweet ("Who the hell thought it a good idea to put Watership Down on Easter Sunday? "Hey kids let's watch dead easter bunnies!") has wound up in the Independent and the Mirror and apparently I'm a "distressed Twitter user" and "outraged parent".

Actually I thought the scheduling was ironic and found it very funny but people are telling me I'm a terrible parent for wrapping my DD (who is 2, and didn't watch the film) in cotton wool...

I love Watership Down but it did affect me when I first saw it as a child. I think my mum put on the "nice film about rabbits" and then went off to make dinner. I was fine with the rabbits having their throats ripped out but had nightmares about the field of blood scene. Even now that piece of music they play in the creepy warren shortly before bigwig gets snared makes me feel very sad. I know nothing about classical music so I've no idea if it's a famous piece.

Does no one have an off switch?

I love WD but I do think I watched it too young - probably 4 or 5 years old. I had nightmares about the field of blood and the visions. Went on to adore the book though.

I think there are sad parts which are fairly typical of children's films - for example the rabbit being caught by the hawk, the general danger of the journey, when they think Hazel is dead after being shot and when Hazel peacefully dies at the end. That's what I'd call "Disney-level drama". But then there are some moments which I'd say are quite extreme like when Bigwig is caught in the snare and strangled, the story about the gassing of the warren and all the ghostly rabbits struggling and suffocating and dying horribly, the fight with Woundwort. That's fairly hard-going stuff for a small child to see.

if anyone has read the book, the whole Woundwort warren is about torture, rape, death and starvation.

Its really not a suitable film for kids.

Watership Down isn't a 'cartoon' it is an animated film.

Animation doesn't = kids film
as anyone who knows anything about Manga, anime or graphic novels will know. One of the goriest things I ever watched was an animated series called Elfen Lied.

I agree the schedulers made a massive mistake with this. I remember going to see Watership Down when it came out and the publicity then made it clear that it was for adults/older teens and it was shown in the evening in our local cinema.
It's more of a horror film than a cartoon.

My nan put it on for me when I was about 7 - totally traumatised me and I honestly still can't face the idea of watching it again at 36. My dd6 is pretty sensitive so I wouldn't let her watch either. Possibly we're a bit wussy though

I can't watch that.

Or Bambi.
Or Black Beauty

I can just about watch the Lion King now at 26 :o

Even a couple of minutes of "Bright Eyes" can get me blubbing, and I haven't seen this film since about 1987

All great literature has 'scary bits' and 'sad bits' because all great literature says things about the human condition, grief, loss and mortality.

WD probably isn't the most suitable film for toddlers, but there does seem to be some risk of raising more and more self-obsessed snivelling thickoes who want everything remotely challenging to be prohibited or bowdlerized to bits. No one is likely to die of being upset or scared by a film or a book, and they might well learn something.

I love it. Read the book aged 6, saw the film when it came out a year later, with my dad.

Ds, to whom I stupidly tried to introduce it when he was 5, Does Not love it. There were tears .

& yy to The Plague Dogs being even worse! Heartbreaking book & film.

Oh the song 'Bright Eyes' gets me every time. I wasn't as traumatised by WD as I was by Bambi though!

I remember being utterly traumatised by Watership Down as a small child and would NEVER show it to my children. Mainly because I'm too scared to watch it myself! I know my dad watched it yesterday, he likes to watch things from my childhood because it reminds him of happier times but I couldn't bring myself to watch it.

Gah, someone mentioned THAT film. I saw Plague Dogs for the first time last year.... I consider myself quite hardy when it comes to film - i'll happily watch horror/slasher films and it's pretty rare for a film to disturb me but OH MY DEAR LORD... If you like dogs, or animals, or need to go about your day not feeling as if you are in a black pit of doomed despair.... then NEVER watch this film. I cried my eyes out for about two hours afterwards and STILL, when it is mentioned, get all depressed and teary.It's really, really awful. But still good - it's well written and well animated - which in a way makes it worse. I would never recommend this film and I will never watch it again.

But I'm conflicted about Watership Down. I think it's an absolutely beautiful but brutal story, and again it's well written and animated , yet it did affect me as a child. I saw it at about age 7 and I remember it with trepidation but I think the good outweighs the bad. I'd definitely let my daughter watch it - but maybe with a little bit of a preamble beforehand... I LOVE the opening sequence.

I suppose watching it blind, thinking it was a cute film about bunnies would be a bit of a shock but people can always change the channel rather than being outraged on social media can't they.

I remember watching a cartoon version of Black Beauty as a small child - maybe 5? It was terrible. I cried and cried. I don't know where my mum was! In the end I just went upstairs and hid under her duvet to cry properly (think that was after Ginger died). I can still remember her finding me and saying that Anna Sewell had written the book to raise awareness of how badly horses were being treated. I don't know if that was actually true but at least it made it feel like there was a purpose to me breaking my heart over it.