Friday Night Lights

Some of the negative aspects may be positives, depending on parents' evaluation of their children's maturity | Marvin Olasky

To go or not to go to Friday Night Lights (rated PG-13 for thematic issues, sexual content, language, some teen drinking, and rough sports action)?

Let's review those PG- 13 elements, starting with "thematic issues": I suspect this refers to the gritty realism of a film about Texas high-school football where an injury ends the career of a star player, a dad emotionally abuses another player, and the ending is not Hoosiers-style. But is it necessary to shelter most 13-year-olds from some sad themes?

"Sexual content, some teen drinking": The film, which accurately shows the enormous pressure some adults in an economically depressed small town place on 17-year-olds, depicts offers of sex and liquor as part of the pressure. The party scene shows not fun but misery.

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October 23, 2004, Vol. 19, No. 41

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