Sunday Night at the Movies

We went to see Avatar last night. As promised, it was amazing. However (and you saw this coming, didn't you?), I was a little troubled--scratch that, a lot troubled--when what was a totally amazing and visually stimulating movie with a rather positive underlying message about ecology and connection with nature took a turn to become a stereotypical shoot-em-up action/war movie.

What was most disturbing was the fact that there were a lot of you children there. During the first two hours of the movie when it was entirely plot driven, these children fussed, and most made at least two trips to the restroom. However, once the battle scenes kicked in, they were entranced. This movie had a lot of violence at the end, and that was what entranced these children. They couldn't follow a simple plot line, but once the shooting started, they were enthralled.

What is happening with us? In some ways, I tie this in to some of the issues Mrs. Q addresses in her blog "Fed Up With School Lunch." She talks about her students' limited attention after the nutritiously poor cafeteria lunch--is the behavior I witnessed at the movie connected to this same nutrition deficit? I mean, granted, most of the kids were munching down on popcorn or candy, but I don't know what they were fed before they arrived (I can only assume highly-processed fast food).

So this is my question: Which has more to do with the limited attention span of our children? Television/media or diet?