Actress Saritha Balakrishnan has slammed parents who take their young children to watch ‘A’ certified movies, calling out their irresponsible behaviour.
Actress Saritha Balakrishnan has called out a worrying trend: parents taking their young kids to watch ‘A’ certified movies in theatres. She made her point by highlighting how parents were bringing children to see ‘Toxic’, a film directed by Geethu Mohandas and starring Yash.
“The movie’s name isn’t the only ‘Toxic’ thing here. A far more dangerous toxicity is sitting in the front row of the theatre, holding the hands of their own children!” she wrote. “It’s okay if the baby misses a feed, but God forbid they miss a shootout scene in an ‘A’ rated film!”
Saritha pointed out the irony. “Parents who cry about their child not being old enough for nursery school will happily buy a front-row ticket for their 4-year-old to an 18+ movie. After all, the child has to become an ‘underworld don’ and be useful to society, right?”
She added that the violence, gore, and misogyny on screen are fiction and meant only for adults. She even noted that the film’s hero himself had pleaded with the audience, “This is not for children, please don’t bring them to the theatre.” But, as she put it, “Will our ‘wise’ parents listen? They have this blind arrogance: ‘It’s my kid, my ticket… I will raise him by showing him violence and gore’.”
“At an age when they should be laughing at cartoons and games, these kids are munching on popcorn while watching blood splatter and violence against women on screen,” Saritha said. “You are injecting this violence into minds that can’t yet tell right from wrong. Later, when this child picks up a knife or a gun against his own parents, you can practice crying and saying, ‘Oh, my child was so innocent… it’s the bad company he kept’.”
She also held theatre owners and the government accountable. “The biggest joke is the attitude of the theatres and the government. Is the Censor Board’s ‘Adults Only’ certificate just a decoration? If the only goal is to sell tickets and collect tax, then you are the number one accused in this process of creating juvenile criminals. Why is there so much hesitation to conduct proper age checks in theatres?”
“You are not just taking your family to a private screening; you are raising a generation that we all have to live with in society,” she warned.
“If you are going to be this irresponsible, please don’t insult the word ‘parenting’. If you can’t raise a good human being, at least don’t gift criminals to society! The movie’s ‘Toxic’ nature ends when the screen goes off. But the toxicity these parents are injecting into their children’s minds has no antidote, ever!” Saritha concluded in her Facebook post.