The Benchwarmers

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about The Benchwarmers' classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of The Benchwarmers completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on May 19 2006.

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie The Benchwarmers contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare or disturb children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

Clarke (Jon Heder) and Richie (David Spade) are adults who never got to play sport as kids. They were considered ‘losers’ or ‘nerds’ and so were both bullied and left out of the local team games. Gus (Rob Schneider) is the local landscaper who used to play baseball as a kid. After Gus and Clarke rescue three kids who are being bullied by the elementary league team, Gus is surprised to find that Clarke has never hit a baseball. As a result he takes Clarke and his friend Richie down for a hit. When the same local team tries to get the three of them off the local pitch, Gus challenges them to a game. Whoever wins gets to stay. The three men win the game and so starts a idea for a round robin challenge. Three men against the various elementary league teams and along the way they become an inspiration for children who are currently excluded from local teams for the same reasons that Clark and Richie were when then were back in school.

Themes

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Bullying

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, mostly intended for comic effect, including:

• Some boys hold another boy down while one of them ‘farts’ in his face. The boy who is being picked on ends up crying.
• A baseball bat flies through the air hitting and killing some squirrels.
• The benchwarmers use their baseball bats to bash letter boxes while driving down the street (supposedly in the name of learning to hit the ball).
• A player stamps on Gus’s hand so hard that it is badly hurt
• During play, some of the players ram into each other. A couple of times the player that is hit does not get up.

Parents are reminded that preschoolers will not understand the intent of comic violence and could be confused by it. Although comic violence may appear benign for older children, and children often enjoy it, over-exposure to comic violence can lead children to believe that violence doesn’t really hurt.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under eight

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of eight, including the following:

• Richie’s brother is scared of the sun and hides in a cupboard. His behaviour when he comes out and sees the sun may worry some small children
  
• Squirrels fall down dead out of the trees after being hit by a baseball bat.

Aged eight to thirteen

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

In addition to the above mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged eight to thirteen, particularly the scenes where children are being bullied and the players are being hit and not getting up.

Over the age of thirteen

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Children over the age of thirteen would not be scared or disturbed by anything in this movie.

Product placement

The benchwarmers eat at Pizza Hut several times.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

• Gus’s wife wants to start a family, and is constantly talking about when she is ovulating
  
• Gus ends the movie by saying that his wife is pregnant because he ‘went all the way’

Nudity and sexual activity

Some kissing.

Use of substances

One scene in which an adult posing as a young player in one of the games becomes completely drunk (on beer and tequila). He throws the ball wildly then ‘throws up’ in the coach’s face.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

• arse
• crap
• damn.

The movie's message

The main messages from this movie are:

• The importance of allowing all kids to play sport
  
• Bullying is not acceptable
• Giving everyone a go
  
• Being able to say you are sorry if you have been nasty to someone
  
• Often kids learn bad behavior from the adults around them. So good role-modeling is important.

Values parents may wish to encourage include:

• Empathy
• Loyalty
• Teamwork

This movie could give parents the opportunity to discuss the issue of bullying.