Now this is just becoming a tradition. Milla Jovovich, the star of the Resident Evil movies and so-awesomely-bad-it’s-good The Fifth Element, is saying that Hollywood bears no responsibility for putting all that sex and violence out there and parents should be the ones monitoring what their kids get into:
“I think parents need to take a lot more responsibility than they do about whether it’s OK for their children to go to Resident Evil or any other movie with violence or sex or whatever. It’s really easy to blame Hollywood for violence having an effect on kids, but movies would have no power if parents would just set their own standards. And it’s the same with video games.”
And then she immediately says without a trace of irony:
“Me and my brother Marco would play Resident Evil together and I said to him, ‘This is the perfect vehicle for me.’ I mean, Alice wears a tube top and a mini-skirt and she’s killing zombies. So when I first auditioned, I said to Paul [director Paul W. S. Anderson, her husband] ‘If I don’t get this part my brother is going to kill me because he sees a huge boost in his popularity at school if I play her.’”
School, huh? In case you were wondering, Milla’s Wikipedia page says Marco was born in 1988, making him 14 when the first Resident Evil movie came out and clearly he was well acquainted with the plot. And before that, Milla also starred in Dazed and Confused, that ode to teenage drug use.
Those both were rated R, but The Fifth Element was only PG-13 despite the graphic disemboweling of an alien opera singer and a very scantily clad Milla in about 75% of the movie, making it perfectly acceptable fare for 14-year-olds everywhere.
I can see why, as new parents, she and her husband don’t want to accept that they may be the ones exposing kids to violence in movies. But come on. It’s not like she’s making Jane Austen films to compensate.
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Although this woman is a noob. I must agree that parents must take a larger role in what their children view. Unfortunately, once the kids are out of the Pixar movies there is not a large pool of enjoyable – to pubescent males – to choose from. There are a lot more appropriate movies for tween girls than boys.
To circumvent this problem, our house has gone old school…Short Circut, Goonies, etc.
On the bright side, it’s not a photo of a disembodied head.
She has a point that the movies wouldn’t get made if no one watched them, but I don’t think she is the best poster child for the movement, as it were.
I am embarressed to admit that I love The Fifth Element.
Milla needs to act more blonde: smile and look pretty.
I also have to confess that I’ve watched The Fifth Element more than a dozen times.
I also agree with Mila that parents must bear a greater responsibility of screening what their children ultimately consume – food, education, or entertainment. We Americans many times have relied on others, government or advocate groups, to shield our children to inappropriate materials that we forget that we have the final say to what our children consume.
My wife and I use our feet and wallet by avoiding companies that we think produce inappropriate materials for our children. Our computers are where I can monitor my children at all times. When I’m not there to monitor their internet use, I rely on a proxy server that prevents them from accessing inappropriate sites. Same with TV, movies, and video games. Our children are not to watch or play any of these my wife and I we think are inappropriate for them. We remind our children that there will consequences if they disobey our instructions. I password protected the cable box to prevent them from watching adult-themed or violent shows. Technology has made it easy for my children to access inappropriate materials, but I also technology to prevent them from access. I don’t need the government to do this for me.
I really enjoy all her movies, I think they are all entertaining and fun, and for me personally The Fifth Element rocks the socks right off my feet. However, the fact that she said those two things one right after the other makes me shake my head in shame. It is kind of hilarious though.
To be fair, I completely agree with her first comment. I am sick of, for example, parents that buy violent video games for their twelve year old son and then worry about the affect it will have on him. You’re the parent, if your child owns something that you don’t approve of than it is your responsibility to not give them that movie/game/album or let them buy it with their allowance. It’s just like the parents that hate the way their kid dresses, as if they have noooooo idea HOW those clothes got in the closet and they have absolutely no control over what their kid is allowed to wear.
That being said, I’m not exactly shocked and appalled that her brother played or watched Resident Evil. I know I saw movies more violent than that when I was younger than fourteen (I was a very young horror fan). Either way, it’s the parent’s responsibility, so if a parent doesn’t want their kid being exposed to all this violence, maybe they need to look a little harder into actual parenting.
I’m not sure I see the blatant hypocracy here. She saying parents should take responsibility in whether or not their kids watch those kinds of movies — not that they should NEVER watch them, but that they (the parents) should be involved in the decision. So who’s to say her parents didn’t do that and decide her younger brother was mature enough to watch that sort of thing? It’s not like he killed anyone after watching it.
Or did he…
I feel about Jovovich the way I feel about mint and chocolate-covered cherries. That is, I loathe the very thought of them, because they make me want to vomit, but I acknowledge that not everyone would like to see her with a flaming arrow through her neck. That said, she’s right–parents need to do a MUCH better job, overall, setting limits and being actual parents. For its part, Hollywood needs to suck a great deal less. Like, 100% less.
Wait…I’m confused. What’s wrong with this statement?
Yes, Hollywood made Milla a crapload of money, but I think she’s right – you can’t blame Hollywood for making violent or sexy movies. That’s what people want to see! It’s up to the parents to filter for their kids. Hollywood isn’t going to stop making movies because some people think they corrupt children. The current news is MUCH worse than the stuff Hollywood spits out, so are we going to stop showing the news? (I vote yes, actually)
If her parents let her and her brother play the Resident Evil games, I think that means either A, the parents didn’t have a problem with what the kids were using to entertain themselves, or B, they didn’t know. So her case in point. Maybe her parents weren’t involved enough to know what games they were playing. Or maybe they did know. But maybe that’s why Milla is trying to be a responsible parent, and is taking responsibility for what her kids are going to be watching. She’s taking the blame off of “Milla the Hollywood Actress” and putting it on “Milla the Mom”. Bravo.
What would really make this Deceiver-worthy is if in a couple years she starts stumping for “Moms against Hollywood” because Hollywood really is evil.
PS – There wasn’t a “graphic disembowling” of an alien in The Fifth Element. The alien’s torso was cut open, and Bruce Willis stuck his hand in and pulled out 4 stones. “Graphic Disembowling” implies the alien was slashed in half with blood and guts hanging out everywhere. Nope. There wasn’t even that much blue jello alien blood. Remember “Addams Family” and Wednesday and Pugsley’s “play” scene where they cut off each other’s arms and legs, and slash Wednesday’s throat, spewing fake blood everywhere? That was MUCH worse – and that movie’s PG. This is the problem with movie ratings – they’re so broad. Which is why parents need to monitor what their kids do!!
I agree that parents should take more responsibility for what their kids see, and as Tony O pointed out, there’s less excuse NOT to, thanks to various filtering technologies.
One thing Hollywood could do better at, though, is to not attempt to go over parents’ heads, and market teen/adult entertainment directly to small children. For instance, the “Transfomers” francise has been generally aimed towards pre-teen and younger. I never watched the original series, but I have seen at least some episodes of the subsequent ones, and they’ve generally avoided bloody violence and sexual content (and of course, they completely avoided swearing). Being of a somewhat conservative mindset, I was quite disappointed to learn that the movies were much more raunchy. I was ESPECIALLY disappointed to see Transformers movie merchandise (like picture books) clearly aimed at children younger than 8 years old. Of course, parents don’t have to buy this stuff, but why bother creating it in the first place?
I think if a child is raised well and has a stable childhood, there is no reason to assume voilent video games will cause the child to become agressive. Video games can probably act like triggers to kids that are already messed up in the head. But then again, so can a knife (you can perceive it as an innocent kitchen utensil, or a weapon to kill people with).
She’s hot
I have to admit that I agree with Milla on this one. Yes Hollywood is putting out a lot of blood, guts, and violence, but it always has. Hell, people bitched about “The Public Enemy” being too violent and “Diamond Lil” being too sexy back in the day. they claimed that it encouraged sex and violence among young people.
Parents need to take responsibility for raising their kids. The television and the movie theatre staff are not babysitters. It is not Hollywood’s job to raise society’s children, and anyone who thinks so needs to seriously reconsider passing on their genes.
I agree it’s never a good idea to take Junior to “Saw VI” or to buy your 8-year-old daughter a DVD box set of “Sex and the City.”
But it’s been a bit disingenuous for the entertainment industry to claim no responsibility whatsoever for the gratuitous violence and increasingly graphic sexuality that permeates almost everything it creates, but wants to be seen as a force for “good,” i.e. influencing people to recycle, volunteer, or care about African orphans. The industry can’t have it both ways…it has to acknowledge that if it can influence people to do what it considers good, it also has to acknowledge that overexposure to torture flicks or sex-drenched fare by those too young for those things can have a negative effect. Parents have to work extra hard to keep their kids away from inappropriate material because it’s everywhere. There’s no t.v. family hour anymore, your kids’ friends might have loads of violent video games even if you don’t buy them, and there’s the internet where you can access all of the porn you want in a matter of seconds. It’s like you have to keep your children in lockdown at an Irish convent.
I own the Resident Evil movies on DVD. I just bought 5th Element on Blu Ray and agree with Milla.
I am a total dictator at our house for watching movies. My 9 & 11 year old boys haven’t seen anything compared to their friends. We just watched the Goonies too and it had a BUNCH of swearing that I didn’t remember (for my kids anyway).
I just wish someone in Hollywood would also come out and say people are responsible for their own healthcare and taking care of their own kids and paying their own bills. The fact that they ONLY call out parents on what kids watch and not on anything else is what I find hypocritical.
I never would have thought of pre-screening movies for my children if some actress I’d never heard of hadn’t told me to.
Thanks Hollywood!
Whew. Another near disaster averted.
Milla making the very very short list of women for whom I’d try out for the other team aside, I still agree with her. Then again, I know that teachers have completely spazzed out over the novels my parents bought me in elementary school, while at the same time my exposure to television was limited mostly to Star Trek and PBS, although movie-wise I pretty much had my choice of everything.
FYI, apparently reading the Scarlet Letter will make your nine year old turn into a massive floozybot.
Ronin, you hit it right on the head. Isn’t it noble of Hollywood to tell us what we’re allowed to decide for ourselves?
Beige,
She is famous after all. Maybe she does know best. We must remember they are just trying to ‘help’ us little people in fly over country.
For the record I bought 5th element not because of her but because it is supposed to be a great way to show of a high def display ( I’m geeky like that)
re the photo:
There’s one thing I despise with liberal actors, is the finger ON the trigger, not alongside.
No wonder they think guns are dangerous, the way they hold guns, one false step and BAM!