Zombies for Children

     The other day while watching TV, I came across a show (I forget the name of it now) that followed around a few families who were in the process of building underground bunkers where they believed they could safely wait out a zombie apocalypse.  Each of these families used the same bunker manufacturer to build their underground home, and each wanted something different out of it.  One in particular stood out to me.  They were a family of 4 (a mother, a father, a son and a daughter).  The father was an ex cop I believe, and the children were very young.  He had begun training them in physical combat as well as with guns.  In the scenes in between the ones focused on their bunker, we followed them to a shooting range, where the young children were shooting at a picture of a zombie.  The father and son even joked on camera about one time when the son accidentally shot his father in the back with a gun (some kind of gun that didn't do much damage obviously, though I am not sure what it was).  I just found this whole scene, and show actually, very weird.  I found it a little unnecessary to place handguns and shotguns in the hands of young children to teach themselves to protect against a zombie apocalypse.  Taking it a step farther, one of the things the father wanted in his bunker was a training facility.  They were prepared to stay in there for up to 6 months, which they believed would be "long enough to wait until everything on the surface of the earth settled down."  During their wait, they planned on practicing even more with guns and fighting moves.
    Around the same time I saw this TV show I also watched two children's movies that were just recently made.  ParaNorman is a movie about a boy (obsessed with zombies) who can talk to the dead and see ghosts.  In the beginning this makes him weird and a loner, but after he saves the town by helping and understanding the zombies, he is a hero.  The other movie I watched was Frankenweenie.  It begins with a similar character who has no friends with the exception of his dog and his family.  His dog is killed by a car and the boy uses science to bring him back to life.  This character is also seen as weird and crazy, until the end of the movie when he saves the town.  The community then sees why he brought his dog back to life and they think it is sweet.  Both of these movies take a similar approach to the idea of zombies.  It is something that is usually thought of as scary, which leads the towns to try to stop them or kill.  The moral of the stories though turn out to be understanding those that are different than us instead of jumping to conclusions.
     These movies contrast with this TV show I saw in an interesting way.  The show, made for adults, perpetuates the idea of violence as the answer.  It shows that you need guns, you need to be trained in combat and killing.  The adults on the show are teaching their children to kill and to look out only for themselves.  It makes people afraid of what is to come.  The movies, made for children, show that the people using violence are the people in the wrong.  It shows the children hero's as peaceful hero's, who can look at everyone's view instead of just their own.  I find it very interesting that when talking about the same popular topic (zombies) the adults are finding their pleasure through violence, while kids are seeing it as a way of accepting everyone.