[Emni Windrunner]

I have to say going into this post that language-censoring is pretty much off my radar screen. My father's daily vocabulary would put Kevin Smith characters to shame, so movies with excessive swearing tend to wash off me like water off a duck's back. I'm not at all saying I approve of language like that (I don't use it myself), just that I'm probably not a good person to address the topic of swearing in general, and in the media particularly.<BR>Well-said, dragongirlG, about how LOTR movie and books can be taken separately! You put into words what I was trying to figure out in my own head. Thank you for saying what I mean!<BR>I agree that banning something out of hand is the wrong way to go. There were movies that my parents told me I could see <I>with them</I> that, had they said, "No you can't see it at all," I'd have gone to a friend's house and asked to rent. But since my parents said I could see them provisionally, I didn't mind waiting until we could watch it together, because I knew my parents weren't putting me off and weren't trying to keep me under a rock. Now, I'm not saying my parents are the best role models ever (you read the first paragraph of this post; you know they're not), but I think they had it right with this one.<BR>That said, I think it's a bad idea to ban something like Harry Potter out of hand, for the simple reason that it draws attention to it as something forbidden, and if I'm an example of what a normal kid's like, that ups the likelihood of a kid who might somehow be susceptible to suggestion going out and reading Harry Potter. If that same kid is instead told that his mom will read it to him, or that he can read it when he's ready (which is what my mom told me when I wanted to go see <B>Schindler's List</B>), I think he'll be more likely to put off the exploration, which will in turn make him less likely to go off in a really strange direction with what he reads. Kids who have parents and teachers that are willing to take the time and effort to trust their kids a little, instead of laying down an ultimatum that saves them the effort of coming alongside of their kids, tend to be less open to the kind of dangers people say are posed by reading Harry Potter or seeing certain movies.