David Reynolds

Dr. Childs

English 1310

5 Sep, 2012    

            The movie “My Neighbor Tortoro” is great for young children, providing a

comfortable environment for them to flourish without any emotional damage from a

negative depiction of their environment.

            I personally did not enjoy watching this movie. It was too serine for me. There were not enough villains, not enough drama or conflict. It did not translate as realistic to me; there were kids not afraid to walk through the woods at night, kids not afraid of extraterrestrial beings three times their size. There was a father whom was not concerned that his kids were standing at a bus stop on a lonely road at late hours of the night, in the rain waiting on him. However I do realize that the move was not made for “me” to like.

            As an adult, I know that this is not the reality of the world that we live in or at least the world that I’ve lived in. In my world there are crimes commented and there are also people with less than good intentions. So one would not, for instance, allow there young daughters to wonder through a forest late at night unsupervised. Also we as adults are hard wired to anticipate something bad happening at some point in the movie because that is also our reality. We in a sense have been tainted by our reality.

            While “My Neighbor Tortoro” may not appeal to the tainted minds of us adults, however it is ideal for young children. The beauty of a child’s logic, and the way they rationalize and perceive their world, is that it comes from a place of innocence and purity. They have not yet been damaged by the realities of the adult world. The movie displays the type of environment that children are able to thrive in. It gives them the freedom to imagine. It depicts small black ghost, or spirits and huge furry monsters as loveable creatures; allowing it to appall to kids without instilling fear into them.  

            It should be the child’s caretaker’s responsibility to shelter the child from this adult world during childhood.  At the age from 1 to 6 especially; the human brain is developing and creating synapses at a rate faster then it will at any other time in one’s life. This makes children’s minds very sensitive and susceptible to emotional damage that could shape their personality and could cause effects that lasts all the way into adulthood. According to The University Record, March 29, 1999 By Bernie DeGroat, News and Information Services, “Scary movies can have lasting effects on children and teens.” Study say, “While the short-term effects of watching horror movies or other films and television programs with disturbing content are well-documented among children and teens, a new U-M study shows that long-term effects can linger even into adulthood. In their study "Tales from the Screen: Enduring Fright Reactions to Scary Media," U-M researcher Kristen Harrison and colleague Joanne Cantor of the University of Wisconsin found that 90 percent of the study's participants (more than 150 college students at Michigan and Wisconsin) reported a media fright reaction from childhood or adolescence. Moreover, about 26 percent still experience a "residual anxiety" today.”

One in four college students in a recent study said they experience lingering effects of a frightful movie or TV experience from childhood. These effects range from inability to sleep to avoidance of situations portrayed in those movies.