Should I let my children watch Ghostbusters?
Question:
Jeff,
I have kind of maybe a silly question here, but here it goes. One of my kids (a 7-year-old boy) has an interest in the Ghostbusters. I use to watch those movies on TV in the past when I was a kid. They were heavily edited back then, and I didn’t realize some of the garbage that was getting pushed in those movies. Therefore, I don’t watch them anymore nor would I allow him to watch them.
However, there was a cartoon show called the Real Ghostbusters back when I was little. I own a copy of one of the seasons. However, I have been hesitant to let him watch that either. I can’t remember anything particularly bad about the cartoon. But I’m wondering if that is something that may steer a kid in the wrong direction. I mean I haven’t watched the show since I was probably 8 years old. Maybe I popped this DVD in a couple of times for a couple of minutes. I’m just afraid there might be some pentagrams or symbolism in it that might be inappropriate. Would it be wrong to watch this if it had any imagery like that? I know that the show never had any effect on me that I know of from back then. But I want to be careful about what my kids get influenced by. He is really begging to watch that but I haven’t let him yet. I guess his mom and I need to screen it and see a little more about what we think.
Answer:
Somewhere along the line, a lesson that needs to be taught to every child is that there is a large difference between imaginary stories and reality. Fantasy stories are not directly right or wrong. However, they may be vehicles used to promote immoral ideas.
I don't recall there being much in the Ghostbuster series to make anyone believe it is reality. Thus, I would recommend looking at the shows and deciding what moral principles are being taught. If when something bad is shown, say a character telling a lie, it might still be acceptable to watch if the show demonstrates that the lying is bad and gets people into more trouble.
Symbols that people attribute to the occult have no actual meaning. "Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one" (I Corinthians 8:4). For instance, I've visited countries where there is so much idolatry, you can't look in a direction and not see some reminder of it. But to me, all of it had no meaning or effect on me because I knew they were man-made. It doesn't mean I'm not going to other countries because I might see something associated with idolatry. See Should things that have occultist symbols in them be avoided?
These sorts of things become good discussion points with your children. And from those discussions, they will grow up better able to distinguish the good from the bad.
