A concerned mother has warned other parents about the new movie “Show Dogs,” which she says depicts bizarre scenes of sexual abuse. Terina Maldonado explained how she had taken her kids to see the fun PG-rated movie, when suddenly they were confronted with a scene that left her utterly horrified.
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“What could have been solely a fun movie for kids that would get my highest recommendation is damaged by a dark and disturbing message hidden, not so subtly between the fluffy dogs and glamorous parties of the show dog lifestyle,” she wrote at Makaroni Kid, an online parenting resource. “As part of any dog show, contestants are judged on their abilities and physical attributes. One part, in particular, is the inspection of the dog’s private parts.”
Maldonado recalled that, due to Max being new to the competition, he was required to “learn the process,” so his partner, Frank offers to touch him.
“Since the inspection of the private parts will happen in the finals, Frank touches Max’s private parts to get him use to it,” she added. “Of course, Max doesn’t like it and snaps at Frank for him to stop. Max is then told by the former champion, who has been through the process before, that he needs to go to his ‘zen place’ while it happens so he can get through it. More attempts are made by Frank to touch Max’s private parts, but Max is still having trouble letting it happen and keeps snapping at him.”
Maldonado was shocked that the message being put across in this children’s movie was that if Max did not allow another dog to touch his private parts, he would lose the competition as a result.
“The judge’s hands slowly reach behind Max and he goes to his ‘zen place.’ He’s flying through the sky, dancing with his partner, there are fireworks and flowers-everything is great-all while someone is touching his private parts,” she explained.
This, she said, was a completely inappropriate message to portray for an audience of minors.
I had to read this twice to make sure I was reading it correctly. Horrifying.
Sexual predation is not entertaining. What are you thinking @ShowDogsMov? https://t.co/Ao01vgKPta
— Russell Moore (@drmoore) May 21, 2018
“During the movie, I kept thinking, ‘This is wrong, it doesn’t need to be in a kids movie. Everything else in the movie is good fun except for this,'” Maldonado explained.
Since her kids found it hilarious that the dog was being touched in the private parts, the mom decided to use the moment as a chance to reinforce some crucial messages with her children.
“We reinforced that if anyone tries to touch their private parts or asks them to touch their private parts they should talk to us about that,” she wrote.
Now, Maldonado is warning other parents about the movie, and asking that they would consider using it as an opportunity to talk to their kids about how to protect themselves from sexual predators.
“With the #MeToo movement and all the talk of sexual predators in Hollywood, I couldn’t help but think this message, that is blatantly in the open for adults to see, but over a child’s understanding, is meant to groom children to be open to having people touch their privates, even though they don’t want it,” she wrote.
This is vile and disturbing…How’s this possible? https://t.co/2biWXg1KQE
— Matt Chandler (@MattChandler74) May 21, 2018
“It gives them the idea of a ‘zen place’ to go to mentally when they are touched,” she concluded. “I’m a make lemonade out of lemons type of girl, so let’s take this movie and use it as a great teaching tool. I’m not going to encourage or discourage anyone from seeing this movie, I only want to help parents make an informed decision. I do encourage if you take your kids to have an educational and powerful conversation with them.”
“Show Dogs” has garnered an extremely poor 23 percent approval rating on movie review site Rotten Tomatoes.
“Show Dogs is really bad, even for a talking-dog movie,” wrote Peter Hartlaub at the San Francisco Chronicle.
“If you came for cute canines you’ll get them, but you’d get more entertainment from an hour of dog videos on YouTube,” added Olly Richards at Empire.
You can read Maldonado’s full review here.