The Myth of “Kid-Friendly”
The previous article briefly mentioned that one of the issues with mainstream Christian media is facing is the fact that it is pretty much all family- or kid-friendly. This is not a terrible thing in and of itself; having media that can be enjoyed by all ages is fantastic for family bonding time or entertaining the kids. However, being “family-friendly” should not be a requirement for all pieces of Christian media. There is no Scriptural reason why every single story produced by Christians and for Christians needs to be suitable for the whole family. This is especially true when even the Bible itself is not truly suitable for the whole family by current cultural standards.
Now, kid-appropriate stories are incredibly important. We cherry pick lessons from the Bible all the time to tell children in a way that they can understand. We talk to them about Jonah and the big whale, but we don’t talk about Lot’s daughters. We talk about David and Goliath, but we usually leave out the dowry that Saul demanded of David for the hand of his daughter. Even within stories themselves we make edits; we talk about Noah and the ark, but we usually don’t go into detail about why God wiped out all of creation. It is acceptable and necessary for children to be given appropriate media. This article is not saying kid- or family-friendly stories should not exist, but that there is a serious imbalance in mainstream Christian media and which audiences they are targeting.
It is important to note that when we refer to something as “family-friendly”, this definition is not confined merely to story rating (i.e. G, PG, PG-13) but also in the type of story that is being told. Elements of the story such as plot intensity, character complexity, and the overall message all tie into whether or not the story is suitable for the entire family. A convoluted political thriller that reads like a chess game on paper may not have much in the way of other adult themes, such as nudity, sex, or violence, but it is likely not going to be relevant or interesting to a toddler. Just because a story is suitable for the entire family, does not mean it is feeding the entire family.
Consider it like this: a family consisting of parents, a teenager, a kid, and a baby arrive at a buffet. The goal of the buffet is to feed the entire family with a limited number of options. It can’t very well provide steak to the baby, so the buffet has an array of mashed vegetables, soft fruits, and milk. Now, while the baby should be well-fed, the kid, teenager, and adults may still be hungry or, at the least, not satisfied after this particular meal. Once or twice this is no problem, the teens and adults can make do and might even find themselves laughing about it. However, if the buffet only serves baby food every single day for every single meal, it is not going to take long for the rest of the family to begin looking for an alternative.
Storytelling is much in the same way, with every person out there having their own “dietary requirements” for what kind of story feeds them emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. One major example of this is the kinds of media teenage boys and teenage girls need. While both desperately need stories with hope, kindness, bravery of all kinds, that teach them how to resist temptation, and that plainly show how defeated the devil is, both also have specific needs to help them feel comfortable and grow in their God-given biological gender. Not in order to enforce any silly, cultural gender stereotypes but to encourage the wonderful masculine and feminine virtues and roles outlined in the Bible. Stories that give them space to love who God made them to be, that teach them invaluable life lessons from their perspective.
This is not to say that anyone is locked into their particular demographic’s stories, of course, and stories can be wonderfully multi-demographic, but it is an illustrative example of why Christian media needs diversity. Everything being “family-friendly” all the time means that someone in the family is not being regularly fed, which means they will be looking for media elsewhere. What they will find is secular media — which can be excellent on occasional — that will not have their best interest, values, and spiritual health at heart. Christian media cannot be confined to only one demographic or a narrow definition of rating. Kid-friendly is good and excellent for its particular purpose, but it is not enough on its own for the whole of Christianity.
