the power of old movies

I don't believe in total censorship at home. Some movies we'll not watch with Erin to avoid the nightmare issue or long explanation of what that man and woman were doing. But, if its on and she comes stumbling in, I don't panic. She's usually not interested.

Last night we watched "Streetcar named Desire". She made it quite a ways through. I passed out before it ended. Now, this morning the questions came.

"mommy? Why were the girls, you know, Stella and the other one - why were they not in color?" Ok - valid question and I went on to explain that some movies were made in Black and white and not color.

"Why did they put the man in the shower?" Huh? Oh - after a drunken Poker game Stanley flies into a rage and passes out thus needing a cold shower to cool him down. I didn't tell the kid that. My response went something like this.
"well, Stanley got really mad and his friends wanted to get him to calm down". The kid interjects - "Yeah, he threw the Radio out the window cause he didn't want the lady dancing". Wow. I continued "Correct. He was just very angry and being very mean. Being mean is not good"

Kid then goes on "Well, I get mean cause I want you to pay attention to me". BLAMO! Self admission from a 4 year old as to why she throws her temper tantrums. It took "Streetcar named Desire" to get her to see that mean wasn't good. She saw how Stanley being mean scared the ladies and she didn't like that.

I proceeded "Well, if you act mean, I don't want to pay attention to you or talk to you. I don't like it when you are mean. If you are a nice girl and listen, we'd pay MORE attention to you and not yell."

Light clicks on for Erin "Yeah, so if I'm not mean, we can talk more!" She may finally have turned a corner. Thank you Tennessee Williams.