My son was about thirteen when the requests started escalating.
R-rated movies. M-rated games. The usual negotiation that parents of teenage boys know well — not quite an argument, more like a sustained lobbying campaign. He'd make his case. I'd push back. We'd land somewhere.
But one night I found myself actually thinking through why I was saying no to a particular movie, and I realized something: it wasn't really about the rating. Some of the most disturbing content my son had encountered came in a PG-13 package. And some genuinely thoughtful films with serious adult themes carry an R simply because a character drops the F-word three times.
The rating system was a proxy for a real concern, and it was a bad one.
What I actually cared about wasn't what he was watching. It was how he was watching it. Whether he was a passive receiver or an active, critical thinker. Whether he had any framework for noticing what a piece of media was trying to do to him — what it was selling him about the world, about women, about what men are supposed to want.
So instead of just saying no, I built something.
The curriculum
What we came up with wasn't a punishment or a prerequisite list to check off before earning screen time. It was more like a shared vocabulary — a set of concepts and conversations that, once you have them, you can't un-have. We'd watch something together, pause it, talk about what we noticed.
The goal was a simple shift: from consuming to seeing. From watching a movie to watching how a movie works.
A few years later, that informal curriculum became the backbone of the media literacy section of my guide From Boys to Better Men — and the conversations I had with my own son turned out to be a model for what I started doing with other boys in schools. So I'm sharing it here.
What media literacy actually means
Before diving into specific resources, it helps to name what we're trying to develop. Media literacy isn't about being cynical or suspicious of everything you watch. It's a set of questions you carry with you.
Five in particular:
Who made this, and what choices did they make? Everything on a screen was constructed by people who made thousands of decisions — what to include, who to cast, what to leave out, what music plays when. None of it is neutral.
What techniques are being used to get my attention? Pacing, music, camera angles, lighting — media speaks a visual language, and once you learn to hear it, you can't stop noticing it.
How might different people experience this differently? A movie that feels universal to one viewer might feel invisible, distorted, or hostile to another. That gap is worth understanding.
What values and worldviews are embedded here? What does this movie seem to think about women? About strength? About who gets to be the hero and who gets to be a prop?
Who profits from this message? Media is a business. Understanding the economic interests behind a piece of content doesn't make it worthless — it makes you a more honest audience.
These aren't questions you need to ask out loud during every movie night. But having them in the background changes how you watch. That's the whole point.
Start here: Miss Representation
The first thing I had my son watch was Miss Representation, a 2011 documentary from the Representation Project. It looks at how women are portrayed across media — in movies, TV, news, politics, advertising — and makes a compelling case for how harmful these images are, with specific examples from content your son has almost certainly already seen.
I've shown this to students in middle and high school. It always generates real conversation, because it's not abstract — it's this scene from this movie, here's what it communicates, here's why that matters. For boys who've grown up swimming in this stuff without ever looking at it, it can be genuinely eye-opening.
A note: the film was made in 2011, and some statistics and pop culture references are dated. That's worth naming when you watch it together — "this is from over a decade ago; do you think things have changed? How?" The conversation that follows that question is often more useful than the film itself.
You can find it on streaming platforms or through the Representation Project's website.
Feminist Frequency
Feminist Frequency was a nonprofit that created some of the sharpest media criticism I've encountered, particularly around gender and video games. Sadly, the organization shut down in 2024 — but their YouTube channel (youtube.com/@feministfrequency) is still up, and the work holds up.
A few videos I've found especially useful with boys:
"LEGO & Gender" (Parts 1 and 2). These videos trace how LEGO shifted its marketing over the decades along gendered lines and what that reveals about how advertisers construct ideas of "masculine" and "feminine." The subject matter is accessible — most boys have strong opinions about LEGO — and the analysis is tight. After watching, try walking through a toy store together and asking your son what he notices about the colors, the words on the boxes, what the toys seem to be teaching.
"The Smurfette Principle." This one introduces a concept that, once you name it, you see everywhere: the tendency in film and TV to include exactly one female character in an ensemble of men. The video breaks down why this matters — not just as a representation issue, but for how audiences end up attributing any flaw in that character to women broadly, while male characters' flaws stay individual. Boys who understand this concept watch movies differently.
"Damsel in Distress" (Parts 1–3). This series looks specifically at video games and dissects the overused trope of the female character who exists only to be rescued. The question it keeps returning to is agency — who gets to act, and who gets acted on. Part 3 is particularly interesting for boys because it looks at what happens when male characters are placed in that role. Watch it before they do, since some examples include graphic game content.
"Ms. Male Character." A look at how female versions of established male characters are often defined almost entirely by their femaleness — a bow, lipstick, long eyelashes — rather than any distinct personality or role. From there, the video draws a line to the way language works: the NBA and the Women's NBA, the World Cup and the Women's World Cup. The male version as default, the female version as addendum. A small thing that compounds.
How to actually have the conversation
The most important thing I've learned from doing this with my son and with students: don't lecture. Watch together and get curious.
"What did you notice?" is better than "Here's what that scene was trying to do." Let him tell you what he saw. Ask follow-up questions. Be honest when something surprises you — modeling that adults can still be learning is one of the most useful things you can do with a teenage boy.
The goal isn't to produce a boy who won't watch anything with a female character who's objectified. That's not realistic, and it's not the point. The goal is to produce a boy who, when he notices something like that, has a name for it. Who can say, "that's the Smurfette Principle" or "she doesn't have any agency in this story" — and who has thought about why that matters, rather than just absorbing it passively.
Be critical of the media you love. That phrase comes from Feminist Frequency and it's the right frame. He can enjoy the game. He can love the movie. He just doesn't have to be passive about it.
The guide has more
This post covers the highlights. The full version of this curriculum — with specific video links, the five-part framework in more detail, guiding questions for each resource, and notes on age-appropriateness — is Section 4 of From Boys to Better Men, my free guide for parents and educators.
The guide also covers how boys learn what it means to "be a man," how to talk to boys about accountability and emotional intelligence, and what language to use when you genuinely don't know what to say. It's designed to be practical — not a theory, but something you can actually use.
Get From Boys to Better Men free →
If you want to think through how to bring this kind of work into your school — media literacy programming, boys' groups, SEL curriculum — I also do one-on-one coaching with counselors, administrators, and educators.
