Story

Themes

Stepfamilies; loss of a parent

Violence

There is some mainly slapstick violence and comic accidental injury in Blended. For example:

• Tyler swings a flaming t-shirt from a pole. Brendan puts the fire out with the extinguisher. In the process, he covers the babysitter with fire retardant.
• Tyler has a temper tantrum when he strikes out at baseball.
• Lauren carries a sleeping Tyler and repeatedly bashes his head against walls.
• Players push and shove each other on a basketball court.
• A girl at the holiday resort draws a picture of an elephant crushing her stepmother.
• Jim and Tyler are riding ostriches when Jim goes headlong over the ostrich, crashing into a water trough.
• A lion and lioness are looking lovingly at a baby warthog and are being shown as an example of a blended family in nature when the lion eats the warthog (not actually shown). Everyone is horrified.

Sexual references

Blended has several sexual references. For example:

• Lauren finds a centrefold under Brendan’s bed with the face replaced by that of his babysitter. The TV is set on a porn station and Brendan is sleeping with a big grin on his face.
• Jim calls Brendan ‘the masturbator’ a few times.
• Hilary wants to borrow the car so she can go and get female hygiene products but has to explain to Jim that she has her period. Lou calls it ‘monsterating’. Jim has to go instead and examines the various products on the shelf in confusion. He asks some teenage girls what they use, but they walk away. Jim finds Lauren browsing the girlie magazine section, because she feels guilty for ripping up Brendan’s magazine. Jim helps Lauren find the right magazine. She finds the right products for Hilary.
• Lauren and Jen have their photo taken together dressing up in their client’s clothes. The photo gets posted online, and they are referred to as ‘closet queens’. Lauren has to state that she is not a lesbian.
• Brendan calls his mother ‘friggin hot’ and says that she has a ‘rocking body’.
• The resort owner shows both families into the main bedroom, which has a huge bed in the shape of a heart. He says that this is where they will make more babies.
• Tyler starts to eat some erotic edible panties thinking they are sweets but Lauren makes him spit them out.
• The singer at the resort suggestively talks about ‘alone time’.
• Lou tells Lauren when she takes her to the toilet that her dad always rubs too hard and he doesn’t have a vagina.
• Mark tells Jim that he will put his flowers on Lauren’s bed where they make love.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

Blended shows characters drinking alcohol in various settings.

Nudity and sexual activity

Blended shows some sexual activity. For example:

• At the resort a man and his younger wife are always passionately kissing in public. The woman wears low-cut tops and is always ‘shimmying’ at the slightest comment.
• A pair of rhinos is shown mating.
• At a couples’ massage session a man rubs his partner’s breasts instead of her shoulders.

Product placement

Blended has references to Hooter’s diners.

Coarse language

Blended has some coarse language and name-calling.

Ideas to discuss with your children

Blended is a fairly predictable romantic comedy about stepfamilies.

It has a lot of crude humour and sexual references, in typical Adam Sandler style, and is therefore not recommended for children under 13 years. You might also feel it isn’t suitable for younger teenagers. It’s likely to be quite entertaining for slightly older teenagers and could raise some interesting discussion points for you and your children.

The main message from this movie is that children need both mothers and fathers while growing up.

Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include understanding, tolerance and the importance of letting children have some autonomy.

You might want to talk with your children about how appropriate some of the movie’s crude humour is – for example, is it OK to make fun of normal parts of development during puberty?