Finding Nemo

The Disney Pixar film, Finding Nemo portrays a strong father- son relationship tied with humorous scenes that will have you and your family laughing. Set in the deep, colorful ocean, this film captures the adventure of a young clownfish, Nemo, and his Father, Marlin as they tackle life underwater. Though Finding Nemo is rated G and is admitted for all ages, there are many scenes that could come across as scary and frightening for children under the age of 7. Along with fear reactions, young children will experience processing limitations to some of the content, effects of media violence, and emotional understanding while watching Finding Nemo.

The creatures and marine life in Finding Nemo will leave small children with a sense of fear towards the unknown. Even in the opening scene a hostile fish with piercing teeth aggressively attacks Coral and Marlin's baby eggs, and the fish are left noticeably hurt and unresponsive. Due to the cognitive development of children's imagination developing, the pure image of a terrifying fish along with the scary sound effect will naturally make a child feel frightened and uncomfortable. This could cause children being afraid to sleep at night, and they would benefit from a conversation and a parents point of view. Some other scenes including an encounter with the main shark Bruce involving blood, a scary deep voice, aggressive talking, frightful laugh, and eyes changing from normal to demon- like will activate young children's auditory and visual attention, along with their perceived appearance to reality, believing that what they see in Finding Nemo is real life.

The death of Nemo’s mother was one of many deaths in a variety of children’s movies that starts the main plot like most Pixar and Disney films. The way children perceive death in cartoon films depends on the cognitive development and age of the child. Children under the age of four pay attention to the perceptual representation that invoke fear reactions while children over four years of age can start to practice a conceptual process containing the gravity of death in children's films. From the age of early childhood to middle childhood, children change from concrete thinking to inferential thinking, so kids would be able to link different scenes in Finding Nemo like when Nemo was in his egg in the beginning and it was scratched to why he had a “lucky fin” or technically a disability which the film portrayed in a very light hearted accepting way.  

Emotional responses from Finding Nemo may vary based on the age of the child viewing the film. The first scene of the movie can set the stage for the children viewing it and it probably a good idea to watch this movie with your children incase they get scared or upset when they see this scene along with other scenes; like the jellyfish scene or the one with the pilot fish. Because children as young as 4 years old are able to identify and relate to facial expressions from characters they are seeing, they will be able to know through the expressive animated characters when they are upset, in fear, or happy. Since children at the age of 4 are able to recognize emotion it is important to realize when media is framing children and shaping social problems. While bullying and violence wasn’t a major theme of this movie there was the ideas of inclusion and fitting in that did play a role. After Nemo was kidnapped he was taken to a dentist office and placed in a fish tank, there he was not completely accepted at first but then eventually initiated into the “group” of fish that were already there. This scene does show inclusion and acceptance, but also does have some negative images of Parasocial images for children. Overall the emotional understanding and the violence in this film are not something that parents should be worried about, however for younger children it would be good to watch this movie with them and explain what exactly is going on.