What the Kids Are WatchingLists of movies to turn on for the whole family on sick days, snow days, bad days, and good days—because a little screentime never hurt anybody.
Vote up the scenes that make you feel secondhand embarrassment.
No matter what your relationship with your parents is like, you've probably had at least one cringeworthy experience with them. Common in real life, moments where parents intentionally or unintentionally humiliate their kids pop up all the time in kids' movies.
One of the most embarrassing kids' movie moments in recent history comes from Turning Red. The moment where Mei's mother Ming marches into Daisy Mart and shows Devon her very private drawings of him while yelling at him for sullying her innocence is excruciating. Another painful moment comes from Frozen - the last thing anyone would want is to listen to their whole family doing a choreographed song about their personal flaws.
Which of these moments makes you want to crawl under a rock?
Turning Red has so many cringey parental moments that it's hard to zero in on just one. If this moment isn't the absolute worst, it's definitely up there.
When Mei's mother Ming sees the drawings she did of her crush Devon, she immediately assumes the worst. Instead of accepting that it's simply her daughter's harmless fantasy, she storms over to Devon's workplace and yells at him for supposedly taking advantage of her. Devon has no idea who Mei even is, and is absolutely baffled by the accusation. Ming brandishes Mei's drawings as proof, revealing her crush to everybody in the Daisy Mart. This would have been bad enough if the other customers had been strangers, but nearly everyone in the store knows Mei already - and now they know way more about her than she ever wanted them to know.
Bob Parr - AKA Mr. Incredible - is a well-meaning dad who is trying to do right by his kids. Unfortunately, sometimes he gets a bit overly involved. His daughter Violet has a crush on a popular classmate named Tony Rydinger, a boy who has his memories of her completely wiped after discovering the family's heroic identities.
Bob feels bad for Violet and tries to help them meet again by taking the family to Happy Platter, a restaurant where Tony works. For some kids, this would have read as a sweet gesture, but for the easily embarrassed Violet, it's a total disaster. She ends up freaking out in front of her crush and spraying water out of her nose.
Bob is trying to help, but you'd think he'd know his daughter a little better by this point.
Having your parental figures break into song and dance in front of your crush is bad enough. The song being all about how you're a "fixer-upper" with flaws that range from poor hygiene to emotional unavailability is exponentially worse.
The song being an attempt to get your crush to marry you is so humiliating that we're not sure how the trolls' song ended without Kristoff straight-up running away. It takes some serious guts to actually stand there and listen to a song like that - or being seriously used to your family's disrespect.
Goofy and Max's relationship is all about cringe. While Max loves his dad, he sees him as completely uncool and doesn't want to be anything like him. Meanwhile, Goofy is worried about his son's potential descent into delinquency. In order to get Max on the right track and try to bond with him, Goofy takes them on a road trip.
While the trip will ultimately help their bond, one of their stops does the exact opposite. Goofy insists on stopping at Lester's Possum Park, a run-down theme park with outdated electronic possums that sing country music, mascots that hug patrons against their will, and a general vibe of absurdity that Max does not enjoy. Goofy tries to get him into it, but gets way too enthusiastic, triggering the whole park to laugh at them both. It's a lot to swallow for a teenager trying desperately to be cool.
Due to her own past experiences with magic, Marnie's mother Gwen doesn't want her kids getting involved. That's why she won't let them go out on Halloween, no matter how much they might want to. She won't explain why, but says she has "reasons" which she will share when Marnie is "taller."
This would have been more frustrating than embarrassing if not for the fact that two of Marnie's friends are right there to witness it - and they take the opportunity to rag on her for being obsessed with ghosts. Not exactly an encounter a 13-year-old would be hoping for.
A parent doesn't have to be physically present to totally humiliate their kid. When Molly Weasley finds out that her son Ron stole a car, she sends him a Howler - that is, a magical letter that loudly reprimands him.
The fact that Ron opens it in front of all of his friends certainly amps up the cringe factor, as does the brief moment she takes to praise Ron's sister Ginny for being accepted into Gryffindor. Understandably, the kids are stunned into silence.
