Friday is movie night.

We’re not obsessive, and I’m super picky about what I end up buying. I have my small shelf of MY movies, and the boys have their many shelves of their movies. And they stare at my shelf and ask me constantly how much older they have to be to watch some of my more prized movies. So far we’ve gotten into the Chinese martial-art-type movies, and they’ve discovered why I like them so much (surrealism). I love watching those light-bulbs explode over their heads as their perceptions expand.

Last weekend, I caved, and declared them old enough for Terminator. I think I made their year. They have been dying to see those. It’s a little more violent than I remember, and I worried about that out loud when it was done. My youngest looked at me and scoffed ‘Mom, they never showed blood. And they barely ever showed the people getting shot. Hunger Games was much worse.” To which my oldest quickly agreed. That was shocking. I thought Hunger Games had a good message and I wanted them to get it. I apparently only traumatized them for life.

With Terminator, it was really interesting to listen to my youngest’s comments- he, the budding writer/director. I don’t have a clue who directed what movie, but he can list James Cameron’s and Steven Spielberg’s, and it’s something he looks for with every movie: who made it. Anyway, Arnold slicing into his arm or cutting into his eye? Didn’t phase him. He wanted to know how, (and watch those wheels turning, trying to plot how he could make it look less fake, with today’s special effects imprinted on his budding brain).

Today was T2. And it hit me: this is impacting them in a much more positive way than Disney movies ever will: Shot-gun toting, machine killing, single mother willing to do anything to protect her son. Sad, haunted, complex, scary human mother of a son, not afraid to speak her mind or act on what she knows is best, and suffering the consequences for that, all in his name. A son who hates her in the beginning but understands her by the end.

It becomes very clear that everything she does is solely for him. Amidst the craziness, the blowing-up-agement, her apparent hardness, you see her tenderness, how much she loves him, and how much he loves and needs her.

Disney?

Disney kills their mothers.