Are you like me? Did movies teach you the morals you have today?

It's no secret that 80's kids had BIG imaginations. If I wasn't pretending I was the Karate Kid, beating off my foes with roundhouse kicks and straight punches then you bet I was imagining I was 007, James Bond, defending my country from international threats. The weird thing is that we didn't need all the mod cons either; a stick and a tree would do. We were dirt poor for the longest of times. So me and a few other kids would make do with what we had around us -- mostly debris from the earth.

I wonder if people realise the impact that movie culture has on the generations of the future. I mean, I try to be a moral guideline for my Son but he learns some of his morality from YouTube, and that's fine, I mean as long as I'm there to correct him if it's something that I don't agree with. Like some of the people he watches are idiots, and I'd hope he's not learning anything from them.

Movies had a BIG impact of morally structuring my life in the 80's and 90's. I didn't spend as much time at home as modern kids do, so there was less time to learn life messages from my family. I was always out climbing something or on the golf course. This was my life.

The movies that I watched were very black and white. Good guy beats bad guy, the end. If you've ever watched Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando then you'll know what I mean. Over the top senseless violence when only two opposing forces, good and bad meet. This only served to reinforce the already black and white view of the world that I had.

Star Wars was another one. The light and dark side of the force. There was no in-between, just good vibes and overtly evil vibes. Praise to the more modern Star Wars film in Revenge of the Sith -- where we saw Annakins slow decent into desperation, humiliation, and defeatedness. Life isn't as black and white as we we think but can often be portrayed as such.

As I've grown older I've started to embrace the in-between. Understanding that life isn't as black as white as I once thought. I rewatched Commando a few years back and my thoughts were more to the families of the fallen soldiers he killed, in the thousands. They weren't bad per-se, only there to do a job to make ends meet. They probably didn't even know the story behind it all, only that Arnold was bad, out to kill them, and he must be stopped. Information is power. Not to mention it was a terrible film. How I could ever think that was good was beyond me.

That's why I enjoy Cobra Kai so much. Probably one of the only series' to go deep into the lore of a movie. You get glimpses of Johnny Lawrences' life when he is a kid, begin to understand that he was being abused by his parents rather than other kids, and begin to feel a moducum of empathy for him. Same with John Kreese, what we once saw as a hardened old Karate Master grinding his students into dust, we see a man terribly scarred by what he had to endure in vietnam, and then cast asunder to "get on with life" when he wasn't required by the powers that be anymore.

Maybe it's a life progression. We tend to favour the epic good versus bad battles when we are younger, favouring the Lord of The Rings trilogy (which to be honest is epic even now) where there is only good, and only bad. No in between. Smeagol for instance was bad anyway -- he killed his supposed friend for the ring.

Then as I grow older and mature I tend to favour the underdog movies whereas an unexpected hero comes out of the blue to win the day -- but has to go through an eternal amount of life lessons to get to where he or she is. Or, even more favourable would be the movies where there is no clear bad or good. You root for a different person each week -- thinking Game of thrones. One minute you hate Cersei for being an utter bitch, and the next minute you can understand her attitude when she is raped at the tomb of her son.

That's why I struggle with the clear cut bad and good -- I'm often thinking to myself, well, why is he like that? And if it's not answered for me then it becomes irritating to the point of switching off. I tend to watch the new Marvel movies for about 10 minutes before clicking away. But then I don't think they are written for moral eggheads like myself. I enjoy sitting in the grey area, some people do not, and that's fine.

I will say the progression from good/bad to everything's a relative form of grey was tough. There's something very centering that there can only be true good, or true evil. In a way it pushes you away from the idea that we all have innate flaws, and that those flaws can be manipulated to do bad things. Movies tend to reinforce the true good and evil idea and the mind will try its hardest to stop you thinking there's grey area, it doesn't like pain.

How I solved it was that I came to terms with it. It's no longer painful to think that I can be manipulated in such a way that I can turn into a horrible person. It's a deep understanding of yourself and quite humbling. Plus, knowing how it can be done helps you unnderstand where the barriers in your life should be. I'm trying to steer my son down this path, but knowing so he wont be ready for any deep discussion like that for many years!

How have movies affected you?