Why Brad Pitt let his 13-year-old son watch a war movie

Brad Pitt says his 13-year old son, Maddox, can handle the content in the new World War II movie 'Fury.'

While the World War II drama "Fury" depicts a gruesome look at war through the exploits of a tank crew in Nazi Germany, Brad Pitt feels his 13-year old son, Maddox, can handle the content.

"He's a World War II buff," Pitt told The Associated Press on Wednesday night on the red carpet for the film's world premiere.

Some have criticized the film's stark brutality. Scenes of a soldier's body getting torn up during rapid machine-gun fire or a tank commander decapitated has the made the film a little too real.

The newly married father of six contends that when it comes to what's appropriate for his children, he comes from "another generation."

"My father would take us to the drive-in as very young kids and we'd see Clint Eastwood movies and kung fu movies," the 50-year old actor said.

He added: "The world is a beautiful place, but it's also a very violent place. We talk about it afterward, so I'm not so opposed."

On the subject of family, Pitt was amused at the notion that he and George Clooney had a pact that they would both get married. Pitt married longtime love Angelina Jolie earlier this year, and Clooney tied the knot in September.

Pitt laughed at the theory before responding: "We did it for the right reasons."

Where parents draw the line with children watching violent films was controversial topic in some homes when the movie "The Hunger Games" debuted. As The Christian Science Monitor reported: 

The book’s violence, in which many children and teenagers are killed, has been a hot topic since it was released. Star Jennifer Lawrence, who plays the heroine Katniss Everdeen in the film, was asked about the controversy after seven seconds of the film was cut to earn the movie a 12A rating in theUK, a rating that would allow children 12 and older in the theater, with younger children requiring an accompanying adult to gain entrance. InAmerica, the movie is rated PG-13 for “intense violent thematic material and disturbing images, all involving teens."

“I do think the violence and brutality is justified,” Lawrence said. “But I understand if everybody has a different standard for ratings.”

The idea of kids being more mature is what seems to worry some parents, who think children will become desensitized to violence. In 2010, a New Hampshire mother, Tracy LaSalle, requested at a school board meeting that the first book be removed from her daughter’s seventh-grade classroom because she said her daughter had started having nightmares and that she worried the other children would become too used to the brutality described in the novel. The book was being read aloud in the classroom.

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Follow AP Entertainment producer John Carucci at http://www.twitter.com/jacarucci