Top 5 Family Movies that Relay Good Messages to Our Kids

There are many movies being released these days targeted toward families-many kids movies even have some amount of adult humor in them, making it a great choice for everyone. Not all of these movies, however, may have the best messages in them for kids. It is important to note the amount of violence in family movies these days, as well as gender role and racial images present in them.

Always keep in mind that the movies your children watch will in some way shape their view of the world, and the way it is supposed to be. So even though it may seem harmless to let your little girl watch the Disney Princess movies (and I'm not proposing that they are wholly damaging), it is important to notice the different messages they convey (for instance, why does every princess need a "Prince Charming" to save them?).

Again, I'm not saying we should necessarily censor or shield our children from any media images that could be potentially influential. However, I do believe we should be conscious of these images, and maintain an open dialogue with our children about the images present in these family movies. Understand that just because a movie is targeted toward children that it embraces the same values you would like to foster in your family, and talk with your children about these discrepancies.

Here is a list of what I feel are the best 5 family movies. None of them are perfect, obviously, but they are a good start for anyone trying to offer positive messages to their children and family.

1. Monsters Inc: I'm just going to throw it out right now that I love Pixar movies. So this list will certainly incorporate a few. Monsters Inc. is a great movie for a few reasons-the characters are lovable, there is very little in the way of gender stereotyping, Boo is adorable, and it has a great message. I love that this family movie incorporates the idea of exploiting the fears and anxieties of people in the world to fuel the Monster world, and turning it around to fuel the world using their laughter. You can see many parallels with our own society (think pharmaceutical companies relying on our own anxieties to sell more drugs), and obviously this is a positive message to send to our children.

2. Whale Rider: This is a lesser known family movie in our country, but is a great one-especially for examining gender roles. The movie takes place in New Zealand, and follows the story of a girl who struggles to find her place in the Maori culture due to the fact that it is highly patriarchal and her grandfather resists her involvement. Throughout the movie we see that this little girl is not only capable of performing the tasks of the culture, but also more adequate at these tasks. In the end, she proves this even further by saving the culture-winning the belief of her grandfather. This provides a great opportunity to see an empowered female in a family movie, as well as hold a discussion with your children about gender roles in our culture.

3. Toy Story: Again with the Pixar movies, I find this family movie to be a great choice because it too has a great story. Change, and the adjustment to change is always difficult on children, and seeing Woody's struggle with Buzz's arrival will allow them to relate, and help face this change. We can even look on a big-picture level, and see that change is a necessary thing in our culture as a whole. With the introduction of new technology and ideology, we must all work together and not resist these changes. This is again a great message offered by an equally entertaining family movie.

4. Wall-E: I would put this on the top five movies of all time-but in this case I will discuss why it is such a great family movie. Wall-E is a robot, living on Earth alone, cleaning up the trash left by humankind and stacking it into large building-like structures. His life is pretty ho-hum until another robot (much smoother and technological than his mechanical frame) appears on Earth, and Wall-E falls in love. Here, the gender roles are more or less flipped: Wall-E is the sappy romantic, very timid and gentle. Eve, on the other hand, is very fluid, but also very abrasive and work-oriented. These gender roles are no match for the ultimate message this family movie gives, however. Wall-E shows us that our convenience and commodities are making us fat, lazy, and disinterested with the world around us-so much so that we turned our planet into nothing short of a landfill and can do nothing but float around on hover chairs and interact with our fellow humans on screen. Wall-E accidentally bumps a hover chair, causing one person's screen to break and consequently it starts almost a revolution. This human sees the world around him, and breaks free of this narrow-sighted lifestyle. There's no better message to give our children than to turn off the TV, the videogames, and to start enjoying (as well as being ecologically conscious of) the world around us.

5. Finding Nemo: Naturally, my final choice for family films is one that addresses the idea of family. This one serves as a lesson for both parent and child alike. It shows an overprotective father smothering his son-to the point which he rebels and consequently gets captured by a dentist that collects exotic fish. The rest of the movie shows this father's journey to find his son, and bring him back home. On this journey, he meets another fish with incredibly short-term memory, and overcomes the anxieties he had himself-that he had been projecting onto his son. In the course of all this, Nemo also finds his own strength in the community of aquarium fish with which he has been residing. After both father and son find strength and overcome anxieties, they are able to foster a closer relationship and overcome great odds at the end of the movie. This is a great opportunity to look at the relationship you have with your own children, and talk about responsibility as well as distance.

There are thousands of movies out there, and certainly more than five that are worthwhile, and contain excellent messages for our children and families. I do hope, however, that you give these a watch and enjoy them as much as I do!