One of the bigger controversies of 80's films is Steven Spielberg's decision to replace guns with walkie-talkies in the DVD version of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Remember that? Spielberg made a pretty little speech about how he felt the guns were 'too scary' for youngsters and he felt it was wrong to depict them in the movie.
Happily, Spielberg has seen the light, and regrets that decision. The guns will be back for the Blu-Ray release of the film.
That didn't stop me from thinking, though, as I listened to some E.T. soundtrack music while pinning and cutting a new dress on the dining room table. (Yes, I am that weird.) Spielberg was responding to a lot of criticism he received about that part of the movie. Apparently, there are many parents who believe that showing guns in a children's movie is just too scary. I have to wonder about their priorities. The scariest thing in that movie, for the children, has nothing to do with weapons or aliens.
Early in the movie, we are introduced to a family in crisis. The mother is obviously overtired and has little control over her kids. There is no sign of a father. We soon find out why, when the little one blurts out that "Daddy is with Sally in Mexico." From the way her older brothers hush her up, and her mother's shattered poise, it was obvious that only one member of the family did not know. The theme emerges a few more times. The boys are very obviously keeping important problems from their mother to spare her feelings and keep from burdening her further.
I was about eight years' old when the movie really hit the market and started being shown and reshown everywhere. I saw it at friends' houses, with that familiar green thing on the VHS tape making it easy to pick out from the others. I saw it at school for an 'afternoon treat' during a Christmas party. I saw it in a summertime drive-in theater. Right around that time, my closest neighborhood friend's parents got a divorce. It was like that in the mid-80's. You were going along your merry way and suddenly a friend, a neighbor, maybe even your own mom and dad were getting a divorce. In a way, it was like a battlefield. You never knew which of your fellow soldiers would fall next.
Spielberg chose to remove those guns from the DVD edition of the movie. Do I wish he had removed the parental abandonment angle from the movie? After all, in other famous kid movies, like Iron Giant and Toy Story, the missing father is barely alluded to, and his method of disappearance is never explained. No, I wouldn't want it removed. It is one of the major reasons, perhaps even stronger than the alien himself, this became such an iconic and important movies of the '80's. It dared to do what so many movies do not, and show all of us just how badly it hurts a family when "Daddy is in Mexico with Sally".
In this day and age, divorce is no longer a new and strange phenomenon. Our children are growing up with peers who never had a father, whose mothers never even married the guy, and they are being taught that this is fairly normal and no big deal. On top of that, we have seen all sorts of new gun legislation and attempts at gun legislation, enforcing and reinforcing the notion that guns are just too scary for children. Fatherlessness, though, that's just no big deal...
The idea of facing an adversary bearing weapons is practically second-nature to these kids. The guns aren't ever even pointed at them. Not a single shot is fired. What scares them is the lack of a parent, or the fear that, at any time, one of their parents may simply walk away... and go to Mexico with Sally.
