Okay, vintage opinions are requested.

A friend at work told me today his 16 year old daughter's boyfriend gave her a movie/game pack of Scarface with Al Pacino for Christmas. My cubbymate and I both thought an R rated movie and related game were inappropriate for a 16 year old girl. (average age for the 3 of us is 55) My take would be to give it back to him and tell him it was not appropriate for my daughter.

Of course I don't have have kids.

What do you think?

 

FWIW, Scarface is the "it" movie now, since MTV Cribs* makes a point of showing every rapper with his copy of the movie. Honestly, having seen it a bunch, I wonder how many 16 y/o girls really want to WATCH scarface, versus just have it on their DVD rack.


*"Cribs" is a show where MTV gives video tours of the houses of various celebrities, sports stars, etc. It's actually pretty amusing, if you can tune out the celebrity idiots giving the tours.

 

I think he may or may not know what is appropriate for his daughter, but he probably does know that better than you do.

 

I guess that it could have been worse: He could have bought her "boobs".

I say this with tonque in cheek as I cannot believe that some parents are buying their daugters "boobs' as a high school graduation present?

 

I think a 16 year-old girl now days knows way more than you would want to believe. I didn't see Scarface since I hate violence in movies, but I wasn't very innocent when I was 16 and I know kids are learning about sex and everything else way sooner than I did. If it was my daugher I wouldn't worry about it at all. BTW, my son is 18 and my daughter is 3 weeks shy of 20. I also tutor algebra to high school kids.

 

While it's probably not the most appropriate gift, I don't think it'll do much harm.

It's been a long time since I saw the movie but I do remember seeing it at a friend's house. I was in high school, probably 16 or 17 at the time. A lot of violence, but a lot of movies today has it too. Of course, you also have the f-bomb every few seconds. This was in the mid-late 80's and I didn't think it was all that shocking.

 

This is clearly the parents call, but as a single parent of a teen daughter, I would have no problem with this. Scarface, while violent, is nothing the average 16 year old hasn't been exposed to already. The games are just games unless the kid is already whacko and prone to acting out fantasies. That's something the parents will know.

If my kid got that for her 16th birthday, I wouldn't even comment on it. It's fine.

 

As I'm not a parent I'm staying out of this...

 

It's ironic that this would come up so soon after Val put up her pit-bull thread. It was Al Pacino in Scarface who said, after all, "Say hello to my little friend..." about his M-16 or whatever that was.

And I've gotta say: the boyfriend in this case needs some romance lessons, IMO. HPH

 

Well, I have raised three kids and for the most part, despite by bumbling attempts, they survived!

I wouldn't get too worked up about Scarface. My 32 year old daughter recently ask if I wanted to see the Kill Bill movies, she would loan them to me. The Kill Bill movies make Scarface look like the Senior prom! And yes, I have seen them all. the problem with young viewers of these movies is their maturity. They seem all too ready to act out/on their frustrations with the examples we see in movies. IMHO

My kids were not allowed to watch "R" rated or worse movies as teens. I don't know if it was a help or hindrance to their growth, but they seemed to turn out OK, unlike their maladjusted father, who absolutely frightened mother to death at spring fling!