The Movie Mom's Guide to Family Movies

Nell Minow Movie critic and commentator on popular culture, parenting, corporate governance

Author Biography

Nell Minow is Editor of The Corporate Library, an independent research firm that rates boards of directors of public companies and compiles research, study and critical thinking about corporate governance. She has written more than 200 articles about corporate go ...
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The Movie Mom's Guide to Family Movies

Synopsis:

What if you could teach your children about life with popcorn and wonderful movies? Here at last is the ultimate reference for every frustrated parent who knows that television can be more than an electronic babysitter.

The Movie Mom's Guide to Family Movies recommends hundreds of superb movies available on video-movies that offer more than mindless explosions, casual sex, and limiting stereotypes of women and minorities-movies that exercise the mind and spirit and bring the whole family closer together. Nell Minow understands that the stories movies tell can encourage children to think, feel, and question-and to share those thoughts and feelings with their parents What if you could teach your children about life with popcorn and wonderful movies? Here at last is the ultimate reference for every frustrated parent who knows that television can be more than an electronic babysitter.

Book Excerpt:

"I know 'Cliffhanger' is rated R, but it's only for violence, not for sex, Dad!"

The boy in the video store added that all of his friends had seen it and said it was no worse than several other gruesome titles he had already seen. His father sighed and gave in. This kind of exchange goes on in just about every family. The same technology that has enabled us to have an unprecedented range of entertainment options has created tough challenges for families. Too often parents end up grabbing videos from the "Just Released" shelf or watching the same ones over and over. This electronic baby-sitting has nothing to do with engaging the mind or heart. Instead, we use it as something of a video “hold button,” parking kids in front of a numbing cavalcade of explosions and jump cuts. The messages of these movies are never consciously considered, yet they somehow sink in. Too often, parents feel helpless to impose any kind of control, longing for the good old days.

Back in those days, when I was nine years old, my father, Newton Minow, made headlines around the world (and ultimately became a “Trivial Pursuit” answer) by calling television a “vast wasteland.” As President Kennedy’s new, 35-year-old Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, he was the first person ever to hold that position to tell the National Association of Broadcasters that he would not allow their licenses to be renewed unless they met their obligation to serve the public interest. He has been fighting for better television ever since. He and my mother did their best to teach their three children to think critically about what we saw on television, and they were always looking for movies and television shows we could all watch together and talk about afterward. They never hesitated to tell us that we were not allowed to watch something they considered inappropriate. Most important, they made me think very hard about what I was watching.

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