10 Ways Successful Movies Had Their Reputations Ruined
3. Kids
Back in 1995, American moviegoers were shocked and disturbed upon first viewing the coming-of-age drama film Kids. The movie, which was incredibly successful, having made nearly 20 times its budget, has a terrible reputation. That rep is deserved, depending on who you ask about the movie.
Kids centers around a group of, well, children, but their actions aren't exactly childlike. There's plenty of alcohol and drug use, but the real problem is all the sex. The movie opens with a teenager sleeping with a 12-year-old girl. A short time later, it's revealed that the boy, Telly, is HIV-positive.
Granted, he doesn't know it, but the rest of the film centres around another young girl he slept with previously, finding out that she was HIV-positive. Her efforts to find and tell him fails when she gets blackout drunk at a party, resulting in her being raped by another "kid," who likely contracts the virus.
You can see why it was controversial when released, and the times haven't changed too much since 1995 in this regard.
Kids still has a highly negative reputation of being less a coming-of-age film and more a pornographic depiction of childhood sexuality.