No, You Shouldn’t Take Kids To See ​’Deadpool’ (They Should Have To Sneak Around And See It On Their Own)

Your kids have Deadpool action figures and piggy banks. They dressed up as the Merc with a Mouth for Halloween and felt offended when people thought they were Spider-Man. And now, with the movie a hit — a long-delayed moment and joyous moment for all Deadpool fans — your kid and others like them are left out in the cold because of the movie’s R-rating. It doesn’t seem fair. But it is.

I’ve watched as rumors about the movie came and went, all while other, less captivating characters got their shot. Because of this, I know what it’s like to be on the outside looking in when it comes to comic-book movies. But there is that other side of me that has been a little damaged by that long wait and the parade of mostly safe comic-book movies. A side of me wants to simply say, “blah, blah, blah, mine!” Because this vulgar, ultra-violent, curse- and sex-filled comic book movie feels like a special gift sent to erase the pain of seeing far too many comic book movies play to a broader audience while assuming that hardcore fans will show up no matter what. That approach has been flipped on its ear for once.

It now seems as though more R-rated mainstream comic-book movies are on the way, meaning that this is likely the birth of a trend. And that’s not necessarily a great thing. James Gunn had it right when he wrote about what studios should take away from Deadpool‘s gargantuan success — its inventiveness and its boldness. It’s not simply, “an R-rating = cash.” It’s also somewhat lazy to suggest that “inventiveness” and earning an R-rating are the same thing. Deadpool has a lot more going for it than coarse language, butt plugs, and slow-motion carnage. The movie is a meta-master class that takes liberties with the tried-and-true superhero movie formula. It could have been a good movie with a PG-13 sensibility, but that would not have fit the character (even though, as Deadpool comic writer Gerry Duggan once pointed out to me, the comic lives a PG-13 existence) and it wouldn’t have appeased a vocal faction of fans. That’s not always going to be the case, though.

As someone who saw the movie the day it opened, I’ve had friends with children ask me for details on just how hard Deadpool’s R-rating is. They know, of course, but they ask anyway and I’ve told them in detail. You’ll make your own assessment, but in general, while I don’t think it’ll destroy any young minds, it seems like the kind of thing you’d want to keep a kid or a young teenager away from for as long as you can, even though that’s ultimately going to be an exercise in futility.

If there’s one benefit to Deadpool‘s R-rating for teenagers it’s that it can be, for this generation, the same kind of thing that the bountiful pile of R-rated horror and action classics was to my generation when we were their age — forbidden fruit. Be honest: The sense of danger that came from sneaking a friend’s VHS copy of Robocop into your house added a little something to the experience, didn’t it? For me, it was my cousin letting me sneak a peek at Tango and Cash that sticks out in my mind. Granted, second-hand VHS copies and sneaking downstairs under cover of night to watch a movie on cable don’t feel like super relevant analogies in an era of streaming and torrents, but that act of watching an R-rated movie when you’re not supposed to is still a cool, mostly harmless, bit of rebellion. It’s also a rite of passage so ingrained in the experience of being a teenager in previous decades that The Goldbergs recently did an episode about Adam attempting to sneak into a screening of Porky’s.

The memories of those films and those rule-defying antics stay with you. And for a movie to find a lasting place in our memories is a rare thing given the intensity and pace with which we consume media now. Too often a film is forgotten as often as soon as it’s watched as we move onto the next item in the queue. But a movie that takes some effort to get to is something to be treasured and defended, like special time with your baby hand or a girlfriend who will say “yes” even after you pull a ring pop out of your ass and ask her to marry you. Or something slightly more flowery.

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