The long, long awaited movie version of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are opens this Friday, and after a gestation period of nearly a decade, people have a lot of interest in the final product. And many people, parents in particular, are asking one question about the film: Is it for adults or kids? After all, the original story was something like ten sentences long, so stretching it out to feature film length has to involve a certain amount of additional material. Also, Spike Jonze has done some nice work, but no one would accuse him of being kid-friendly. For those people, Sendak has a simple, pithy response that might best be summarized as Fuck Off:
Reporter: “What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?”
Sendak: “I would tell them to go to hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.”
Reporter: “Because kids can handle it?”
Sendak: “If they can’t handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered.”
Actually, Sendak, the question can be answered. In various different ways. It’s not a freakin’ Zen koan, for pete’s sake. Basically it depends on the kid. As a wee lad I was a big fan of teh scary, so I’d probably be okay with taking a rug rat into the theatre and letting them deal with the “trauma” in whatever manner they chose. But I’m not sure I’d introduce that same child to Maurice Sendak. Some things are just a little too traumatic.
6 comments
Actually I think that was a brilliant bit of marketing there. Everyone’s talking about how obnoxious his response was.
Interesting point, but I’m not sure Sendak is calculating enough to pull that off. Sounds to me like he was speaking straight from his black, shriveled little heart.
There is a documentary airing on HBO this Wednesday, I believe, called Tell Them Anything You Want about Maurice Sendak. To a certain extent, I can kinda see the point he seems to try to be making. This is where we end up with nearly grown peole believing that they were found in a cabbage patch or delivered by the stork when they were babies because we think they can’t handle the concept of sex, even in the vaguest of terms. And really, who among us wants to believe that our parents ever fucked anyone, let alone each other (probably a few but not many I would think).
I haven’t seen the documentary yet and I don’t know his whole viewpoint. I think kids are much more resilient than parents give them credit for at times.
Please to note, I am not advocating we show our children actual intercourse or Faces of Death or anything. If you listen to kids, and you step back a bit, you let them know what they are asking, whether it be about death or senseless violence, or sex, it is a natural progression that happens over the years as they mature. It shouldn’t be all just one dear in the headlights talk in my opinion.
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i think his point is that kids can handle being scared more than adults realize. and he’s right — Halloween anyone? seems to me that he just wants the adults need to step away and let kids read the scary books they love (or watch the movies inspired by them).
If you let children watch the nightly news, they should be able to handle a movie about monsters. Who are these parents and are they the people that ratings had to be developed for?
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