We’re selling the kids short

S.J. CAHN

This piece was headed in a particular direction when I paused to edit

Joe Bell’s column, and two things happened: one, his mention of the

R-rated movie that was shown earlier this month in a seventh-grade

class at Corona del Mar High sparked memories of movies I watched in

high school; and two, as I was thinking about those movies, my eyes

swept across my desk to where Wednesday’s Pilot was carefully (you

must believe) tossed and I was struck, not for the first time, by the

efforts of Newport Harbor High’s Student Political Action Committee,

which featured prominently in a front-page story, “A whole lot to

consider.”

The two moments dovetail nicely when it comes to thinking about

the more personal side of politics. And few things are more personal

than our kids.

As a reminder, following the showing of “The Messenger: The Story

of Joan of Arc,” the Newport-Mesa Unified School District instituted

a policy banning all R-rated films from classrooms and allowing PG

and PG-13 movies only with prior principal approval. There’s been

little outcry at the decision, presumably since all but the very

oldest of students can’t officially watch R-rated movies.

Bell makes the point in his column, though, that there are other

facets to movies worthy of concern. Chief is the historical

inaccuracy of many films.

I think there’s little doubt that the three movies I keenly

remember (there might have been others) would probably concern some

parent for their slant on history: “How I Won the War,” which is not

rated and is unduly famous for John Lennon being in it; Stanley

Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and

Love the Bomb,” which is rated PG; and “Start the Revolution Without

Me,” a Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland romp that also is PG-rated.

I know we watched the last in our sophomore year and am pretty sure

we watched Kubrick’s in our junior year. I think “How I Won the War”

also was shown at the end of a junior year U.S. history course.

That makes us significantly older than the students who watched

the Joan of Arc movie, and the movies don’t contain anything nearly

as graphic. But they are subversive of the status quo -- in “How I

Won the War,” after all, characters killed in combat continue to

follow the remaining troops. It is not “rah rah” stuff, and I can see

a parent objecting.

Any such objections, in our case, would have been unfair. I don’t

recall any of us mistaking the perspective being put forward. No one

came away from “Start the Revolution Without Me” discounting the

importance of the French Revolution -- or misunderstanding it’s

reactionary bloodletting. We knew what we were watching: It was an

interpretation, just as a novel would be or, in the end, the history

text we’d had all year.

Keeping us from recognizing that on our own would have been to

sell us all short, which I think adults do pretty routinely when it

comes to our kids.

As Exhibit A on why kids shouldn’t be underestimated, I submit the

7-year-old Newport Harbor High Student Political Action Committee.

As I told our city editor, Carol Chambers, this week as we were

talking about the group’s planned meeting on the St. Andrew’s

expansion controversy, you won’t find a more consistently engaged,

well-put-together group of kids. After all, a student group that

seemingly could fall by the wayside because of one year’s

disinterested students has lasted almost through two generations of

students (four years a piece), likely a testament to advisor Phil

D’Agostino as well as the students.

The group has repeatedly demonstrated acute and perceptive

understanding of issues, most recently with the St. Andrew’s

controversy. They even were mature enough to admit they’d made a

decision about the church’s expansion and high school parking

proposal without all the information they needed.

I’d love to see “adult” political action committees do the same.

I’d also encourage members of the group to watch any of the three

movies I mention above, if they haven’t already. They’re good stuff.

* S.J. CAHN is the managing editor. He may be reached at (714)

966-4607 or by e-mail at s.j.cahn@latimes.com.