Girl films for boys??? Are you kidding???

Hmm.. I'm not!

This was a short conversation between Ariq and his classmates last year (when he was still in KG-B) during the home visit to our house..

"Everyone.. let's watch a film!" Ariq asked his friends to sit in front of the television.

"What is your favourite film?" One of his teacher asked.

"Do you have Ben10?" One of the boys asked.

"No, I don't." Ariq answered.

"What do you have?" One of the girls asked.

"Little Einsteins, My Little Ponies, Strawberry Shortcakes, Diego." Ariq answered again.

Then they decided to put 'Little Einsteins' on. The girls cheered, but of course half of the boys decided that the fish pond was more interesting.. ;-)

Of course this situation did not last forever.. about half a year after that, Ariq started to like Ben10, Transformers and other boys films..

About two weeks ago, he saw a trailer of 'Barbie and The Three Musketeers', and he asked me to buy the DVD for him, so I did.

It turned out that both Ariq and Aza like it.

I asked them why they like the movie, and they answered, "Four beautiful girls in pretty dresses, successfully taking down the bad guys!"

The impression that Aza had was even further, he was really touched with the scene when Corrine (Barbie) was hugging her mother before she left for Paris. During the scene, Aza suddenly hugged me.. :-)

I think back to the choices of girl films that I bought for Ariq, which he really liked.. 'Strawberry Shortcake: the episode when she went camping with her friends', 'Dora: the episode when she rescued the Prince', 'My Little Ponies: the episodes when the ponies helped the boy rescued the princess and the episode when they had to rescue some ponies from the evil circus'.. then I realised something, boys are boys no matter what, but as kids they need and want to see the whole picture of life..

Films like Ben10 and Transformers certainly interest boys with their 'power', 'heroic' and 'strength' sides of life, which are directly attached to all boys.. but, as human beings, boys need to see the other side of life too.. subconsciously, they want to see 'beauty', 'love' and 'colours' as part of their thinking and imagination process..

Boys most probably won't enjoy fairy tales like Cinderella or Snow White much, but they do enjoy other classics like Pinocchio. The same with current films, they might not like ALL Barbie, Strawberry Shortcake or My Little Ponies, but there are some ideas in those films that are not conveyed by boy films in general.

Some things that I notice from Ariq's questions make me sure that he needs to watch both types of movies.


These are some of his questions from watching Ben10:

"Mum, why Ben and Gwen are living with their grandpa instead of their own parents?"

"Mum, are Ben and Gwen friends or cousins? Why do they keep spilling ice cream on each others' head?"


These are some of his questions from watching Strawberry Shortcake:

"When we are camping, we don't need to be afraid, right Mum? Because the shadows are not ghosts.."

"Camping looks fun! Will I go on a camp one day?"


These are some of his questions from watching Barbie and The Three Musketeers:

"So, it's not only boys who can do moves like that, Mum?"

"Why wasn't she allowed to join the Musketeers? That's not fair!"


The ideas conveyed by each type of films are different and the objectives are different too..

I remember when I was younger, my sister and I used to watch boy films like Voltus-V, Kamen Rider, Power Rangers, etc. Watching those type of films gave us the motivation to be strong, and not afraid to face competition in life to become the best in what we liked to do.. also, we liked seeing the good-looking actors in the films (obviously..)

At the same time, we enjoyed watching the fairy tales too, because we liked how the princesses looked like, their dresses and their hairdo.. it all gave us the idea of how being beautiful, graceful and proper were supposed to be.

Yesterday I asked Ariq, "Do you tell your friends that you have the Barbie DVD at home?"

He answered, "The girls are excited, the boys are embarrassed, but I'm not worried! I like the movie."

Now, I can see that boys are just the same.. they can appreciate strength and beauty the same way at the same time if they are given the same chance to learn about both.. Moreover, I'm glad to see that Ariq is confident in doing what he likes despite his friends' opinions.. :-)