Movies in Schools

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Movies in Schools

                Yesterday, we had two marching band competitions.  I know you automatically think we’re not cool, but get over yourself, because we’re a lot cooler than you think.  Anyway, the second competition was two hours away, so we took three charter buses to get there.  People can bring movies for us on the way, and we vote on which one(s) we want to watch.  Last weekend, we watched the entire first season of the Big Bang Theory.  However, this week, someone brought The Hunger Games, and one of our directors said we couldn’t watch it because it was too violent.  Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, on the other hand, was fine.  She obviously hasn’t seen either of these movies within her period of memory, so we were subjected to her whimsical assumptions.

                The Hunger Games was made so that a considerable amount of the violence present in the books was not shown, because they wanted it to be PG-13, as most people reading the book were from junior high through college, and if it were rated R, many possible viewers would be turned away.  There is still some violence, but nothing you wouldn’t see if you were leisurely flipping through the channels on regular TV.  Transformers, if you don’t know, is constant violence and clashing of metallic robots, and also happens to be one of the loudest movies I have ever seen.  It is also rated PG-13, but in its explanation, it warns about violence and crude and sexual content.  It is safe to assume that virtually every high school kid has seen movies that are more ‘unsuitable’ than this, and just about any movie that someone brings would be fine for us to watch on the bus.

                Our director is overall a good lady, and very skilled at her job, but in my personal opinion, she isn’t familiar enough with popular movies to make judgments about what we can and can’t watch.  She would be better off just asking a few of the parents what is okay.  Literally everyone on our bus was screaming and chanting for Hunger Games, and started booing when one of those poor moms went against their will and put in Transformers.  Hardly anyone stayed awake to watch it.  I just think that Michelle Obama is influencing our lives enough with this new healthy food nonsense at lunch, and that the rules for movies and films in schools and school activities need to be lessened.