Should Jim's dad be every dad?

The clip above is from the first American Pie movie.  American Pie is centered around high school boys and their quest to lose their virginity’s before they go off to college.  In the scene below we see Jim Levenstein (Jason Biggs) and Jim’s dad (Eugene Levy) having a talk about the female physique.   By using explicit magazines, Jim’s dad is using a form of parental mediation called active mediation. 

In this seen, Jim’s dad keeps a positive attitude about all of the images he is showing to his son.  He is taking the approach of validation mediation by not only showing Jim the types of media that are out there for him but also supporting what they are looking at. The conversation is beyond uncomfortable for both Jim and his dad and the scene ends with Jim’s dad finding out that Jim had been doing some “learning” on his own already.  

While I think that this scene was intended for comic relief, it provides a really good example for parents and children to experiment with how they want to approach one another.  In the movie it seems Jim’s dad has taken the wrong approach, however throughout the American Pie movies, it is clear that Jim and his dad have a really strong father son bond.  While this talk is awkward for all of 5 minutes, this scene might show parents that using active mediation instead of restrictive mediation might create a more open relationship with their children.   

What is negative about this scene is how accurate the information truly is depicted. It is important to note that throughout the films Jim is seen as the “good” guy with the right morals.  The reading by Guo and Nathanson states that validation mediation such as what is depicted in the clip can sometimes lead to more negative effects such as men seeing women as sexual objects.  If the scene went along with how the study’s results do than Jim would have much more negative views on sexual activities and women than he actually does.

I chose to do more research on this topic because I find that the effects of parental mediation are often very different than one would expect.  I am interested to find the most successful approach to parental mediation that researchers have found thus far.

Guo, W., & Nathanson, A. I. (2011).  The effects of parental mediation of sexual          content on the sexual knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of adolescents in            the US.  Journal of Children and Media, 5(4), 358-378.