Patriotism Scares My Kid

Got the popcorn, got the tickets, got my 4-year-old literally skipping down the carpeted hallway and I'm ready to get to our seats and watch Jerry Seinfeld's "Bee Movie." I love going to the theater with my daughter who also loves the experience.

Our butts hardly hit the seats when the lights go down. "Hmm," I think. "It's a good 10 minutes early. I wonder what's up." Then I find out.

Apparently the theater company in my fair city has allowed a five-minute music video from the National Guard to be shown before all movies. While I'm all for allowing recruitment wherever they're allowed to market, movie theaters included, this struck me as odd. First, there's the fact that this commercial in the guise of a music video is 4 minutes long. In real time, that's a while, especially with a sleepy 4-year-old on your lap.

Secondly, the production itself was...odd. It starts with some generic rock band singing about citizen soldiers and then gives us an extremely redacted tour of US military history. You have guys with muskets shooting at red coats. You have the dirty grunt kissing his wedding ring before storming the beaches at Normandy (I'm pretty sure his corpse is shown later on in the piece). Then you have generic, highly trained soliders kicking in a door, their automatic weaponry gleaming. The whole thing is on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJRthpxDM10

So what's my beef? Here are a few questions my daughter asked during the commercial.

-Why does that guy have a gun? Is he going to shoot that guy?
-Is that guy sad?
-Why is he screaming?
And my favorite
-Are those good guys or bad guys?

Then, during an intense scene, she buried her head as if scared. It probably had something to do with the scenes of combat we endured while waiting for the GOD DAMN KIDS MOVIE to start.

"Saw 4?" "American Gangster?" Any other R rated fare? That's fine. Show the piece. I've long since given up on the movies as any sort of "experience" anymore with the exception of midnight screenings and going to movies with friends. But spare me the mildly intense jingoistic but certainly bombastic propagada while I'm waiting for my light-as-whipped-topping entertainment for my child to enjoy. Any chance?

For the record, I didn't care for Bee Movie, but I really liked watching my daughter watch it.