I was in the toy section of Wal-Mart looking to buy a little something for my kid. I'm sifting through all of Batman and Iron Man junk, Hotwheels and Lego nonsense and then I find this:

There was a bunch of action figures for each of the main characters from Oliver Stone's violent R-Rated Vietnam War film Platoon. A film that displays all matter of violence from torture, dismemberment, head wounds and child rape.

And there are the action figures for the kids, next to the Incredible Hulk and Spider-man.

I looked and no, they didn't have the rifle/bong in his packet of accessories.

A store employee walked by, I pointed out the toys and asked if they were any figures for The Deer Hunter. Apparently, she didn't find this funny.

As my generation has grown older we have found that we haven't been pressed to act like adults. We are a generation of aimless man-childs who strive to meet the lack of expectations put before us. A symptom of this is the thriving market for action figures and other toys for films geared not necessarily children but the older set. Collectible toys supporting adult films, as pathetic as it is, is good business. There are plenty of dullards who buy up all matter of dolls and comics, give them fancy names like "action figure" and "graphic novel" and gleefully tether themselves to their childhood fancies. If this is what you do, knock yourself out, if you think being a 40-year-old man and happily owning King Leonidas action figure is cool, well that's your business. Who am I to point out that actual men have better things to do than to mess around with dolls. What is alarming is the development of toys from R-rated and PG13 films marketed directly for children. The studios know small children shouldn't see films like 300, Terminator, Rambo or other movies laced with adult content. But their marketing efforts are directed at nabbing these kid's attention. This is a confusing message for the culture and supports my generation's lack of parental control when it comes to protecting our children from harsh content.

When we buy this stuff I think there's a message there we're both accepting from marketers (it's okay to market these kinds of toys to children) and passing to our kids (adult things are for adults). If you give your kids toys for R-rated movies it doesn't mean you're a bad parent. I would never suggest that...unless it's a toy celebrating murderous Communists like Che.

Labels: miscellaneous, movie watching tip