Story about the Oblivious Father Figure

randycat99 · March 7, 2004 4:21AM

Just had to get this off my chest. So I'm checking out the bigscreen TV area in a popular home electronics market. They are showing a rather interesting nature flick. It even had dramatic classical music soundtrack. So anyway, I'm just watching it enthralled by the content- a graphic standoff between 2 lions and a wilderbeast. You can pretty much guess where this is leading.

So the lions start climbing onto the wilderbeast, hanging on to it by their sharp teeth, but the wilderbeast just would not go down (pretty much stretching out this graphic ordeal). At this point I'm pretty much absorbed into the matter until my attention is dragged out by the sound of children crying. I look over to my right, and I see 2 kids sort of confined in a shopping cart just balling, as they are at the perfect height to witness this gore on the big screen right in front of them. The screen was right there! Can't get out of the cart, can't look somewhere else, because there are just more screens showing the same thing. They were literally trapped and forced to watch this wilderbeast get attacked mercilessly! How's that for a childhood warping event?!

So who's the schmuck watching these kids? Where da f*ck is he, and why hasn't he done something about this? Well it's this dense looking father looking dude standing right next to the cart. What's he doing? He's chatting it up with the salesperson- presumably asking about big screen TV's. He's just completely oblivious to the fact that this material may not be the best kind of exposure for little kids and completely oblivious to the emotional torment his 2 little kids are overtly exhibiting. He's just happily chatting away with the salesguy. I can see even the salesguy has a strange look on his face- like thinking to himself, "Uhhh, aren't you going to do something about your kids? Don't you feel a bit weird keeping your kids here, since they obviously are getting a bit disturbed by a wilderbeast getting bitten (in the nose and neck) until it falls to the ground???"

So this was like 4-5 minutes of excruciating "lion chewing", which must have seemed like an eternity for those kids. I felt really bad that they had to watch this, trapped in that cart, nowhere to divert their look, and completely immersed in an emotional musical piece from Tchaikovsky. I just know this moment will be forever etched into the back of their memory, suppressed as much as possible, but never fully obscured. So much for "spending some weekend time with Dad". He's more interested in talking shop with the salesguy.

Moral to this story- Dad's are questionable guardians while in a Circuit City (that wasn't the store, but you get the motif). Moms, if you care about your kids' delicate psyches, don't let this scenario happen.

The wildlife video actually ends on a highnote, believe it or not. While the 2 lions are beating up on this one wilderbeast, we are finally made aware that the rather large wilderbeast herd are gathered only 30 ft away just staring at the struggle. They don't look to happy to see one of their own getting taken out like this, and they are a bit uncertain if they should intervene. They have the numbers to make this work, and eventually figure out they can scare off the 2 lions. They get closer and closer until the 2 lions figure out it is they who are actually in danger here. They get spooked, abort the attack, and run off. This was rather unexpected, as they had a kill well in hand. The wilderbeast had become exhausted, was grounded, and was slowly suffocating by its nose being pinched off in the jaws of one of the lions, before the 2 just up and ran off.

Freakin' amazing! The wilderbeast survives the ordeal, slowly gets back to its feet, and is re-absorbed into the herd for protection. They show blood still dripping from the nose and fresh wounds apparent along its body from bites and scratches, but it actually looks like it might survive. I've never seen anything like that before on a nature show. All the while the Tchaikovsky music plays in victorious salvation snatched from the fatal grasp of disaster.

It doesn't even matter to the 2 crying kids. They are in too deep of a distraught state to even notice that the wilderbeast prevailed. They are just crying their little lungs out. ...that dumbass, chucklehead of a father!

So that was my odd observation of "people shopping in a store" for the day.

\ How'bout you?

Almost forgot to mention, personally I feel this was much more damaging material for little kids to watch than say catching a brief flash of woman breast in some half-time music act. Yet, nobody is going to "drop the hammer" on a nature footage show. I'm not saying they should, either. I'm just noting that getting panties in a bunch over a surprise exposed breast shot just pales in significance to what those kids saw today. That father didn't even give it a 2nd thought (or a 1st thought, for that matter). It's a strange set of values we have these days (wrt to indecency and obscenity)...

BTW, LONG LIVE HOWARD STERN****HOWARD STERN RULZ****F-U CLEARCHANNEL, F-U!!!

http://www.webaction.com/pages/1/index.htm

^^^ help Howard and go to the link!

eugene · March 7, 2004 4:59AM

Right. The store probably shouldn't be showing questionable content like that to the easily disturbed, but whatever. I watched gory stuff like that all the time and turned out just fine! ...

randycat99 · March 7, 2004 6:08AM

Well, that isn't the notion I was really shooting for, but I understand that different people will think of different solutions to a single problem. Personally, I don't hold the store responsible for showing it or not. I certainly got something out of the presentation. I just think it was awfully callous for that father to mindlessly park his cart there and keep it there while his kids watch in horror in all its HDTV glory, not more than 3 ft from their faces.

sdw2001 · March 7, 2004 7:53AM

Well...honestly I can't agree. The father should have been watching. OK...I'll give you that. But, hunting is part of nature. It's shown in schools all the time. I never cared much to see it as a kid, but hell.

Anyway, I do like this statement:

Quote:

Moral to this story- Dad's are questionable guardians while in a Circuit City

Well said. I have to remember that one.

scott · March 7, 2004 7:56AM

So long as a dingo is not eating a baby I think it's okay.

alcimedes · March 7, 2004 8:12AM

reminds me of the guy on his cell phone while we were at the off leash dog park. his dog is about to be killed and he's just yakking away, telling the other person "oh, that's the dogs playing".

i had to yell at him three times to come get his dog before it got hurt before he realized they weren't just barking.

if you're responsible for someone or something else, that should be your primary concern.

spcms · March 7, 2004 8:20AM

I think you are overestimating the impact something like that has on a child. Sure it was irresponsible of the father to leave his children trapt in a cart while they were obviously unconfortable, but i don't think the movie itself is something that will do any lasting damage.

sdw2001 · March 7, 2004 8:34AM

Quote:

Originally posted by SpcMs

I think you are overestimating the impact something like that has on a child. Sure it was irresponsible of the father to leave his children trapt in a cart while they were obviously unconfortable, but i don't think the movie itself is something that will do any lasting damage.

Agreed.

artman @_@ · March 7, 2004 11:38AM

If I was in that situation...I would have turned the TV off or changed the channel.

"Not good viewing for you children. Let's see if Forever Eden is on!"

Hilarity or chaos would ensue I guess. But that's my nature.

By the way I work in retail and see this shit all the time. Plus, when I cashier...if I have one more asshat yakking on their cellphone during the transaction...I'll shove that cel phone up your ass without lubrication.

randycat99 · March 7, 2004 3:31PM

Another thought that I found interesting out of all of this was what if this nature video in the store was replaced with the superbowl halftime show? With the nature show, the adults largely went about their business, somewhat intriqued but overall unphased by the depiction. The 2 kids however where hit like the world was ending. With the halftime show, I imagine the adults would be all up in arms that 2 kids were nearby when the Janet Jackson part played, while the 2 kids probably would not have had any response at all, let alone be watching. We think that 2 kids watching the equivalent of "Faces of Death" for animals should be OK because it is essentially a documentary to nature/wildlife, but heaven forbid if they see a brief shot of female anatomy (a body part they assuredly are intimately familiar with when they suckled from their mother as babies)? Sexual intercourse is real and natural, as well. So is the existence of wifebeating (and don't try to make some ridiculous deduction from me mentioning those 2 specific examples together). Would people be content to be exposed to that on 30 bigscreens in an electronics store, just because there is essentially nothing fictional about it in real life? Is it too unreasonable to imagine that in 6 mos or so the "Passion of Christ" dvd will be found playing in the big screen TV area as "matter of fact" as a LotR movie is now? A great majority of the population do believe (the former) is essentially a depiction of a true and real event... (Personally, I would have been more appreciative of a bigger, badder Mad Max movie than a Jesus movie from ole Mel.

...but that is just me, of course.)

I guess what I'm getting at is that our ideas, of what is acceptable and what isn't, is so easily haphazard, incidental, and logically inconsistent. Subjectivity is far too prevalent for us to make snap judgements about what is "obviously" inappropriate and what is OK. We should be suspicious of those who are in a position of authority and are making these very decisions, with very little justification, about things we watch/hearing/reading. Are they acting in the role of a logical framework or simply an agenda? The former is no longer a "given".

Out of all of this, it is still important to be aware of things that aren't such a great idea to show young children. However, this shouldn't be confused as a thing that shouldn't be shown at all to anybody. In the matter discussed above, I still feel that this was clearly an incident where the parent was utterly negligent to take appropriate action (moving the children elsewhere). If ever confronted/cornered on this, that parent would undoubtedly divert blame and simply claim the store should not have been showing it in the first place. That is a supremely pathetic cop-out, IMO. It's not the store's responsibility to babysit his kids while he goes to "play in the candystore".

stoo · March 7, 2004 5:25PM

Quote:

Personally, I would have been more appreciative of a bigger, badder Mad Max movie than a Jesus movie from ole Mel. ...but that is just me, of course.)

It appears that Mad Max 4: Fury Road has been canned/postponed.

artman @_@ · March 8, 2004 12:24AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Stoo

It appears that Mad Max 4: Fury Road has been canned/postponed.

'Mad' Max Rockatansky?

Bummer. Mel really saw the light. Will probably do Ben Hur or Ten Commandments next...

Story about the Oblivious Father Figure

Comments