When the David after the dentist video came out, we had a good conversation about whether it was wrong for the father to post this video of his son all drugged up and in pain. Hanna cried foul, but some of us agreed it was funny—and harmless—enough to be worth the potential privacy invasion. Not so with the latest music video from MGMT, in which a baby is tormented by scary monsters who hover over his crib, grab him with their scary monster claws, and follow him and his flighty mother around town. What a relief around the five-minute mark, when the kid morphs into a cartoon version of himself. Torment the cartoon child all you want! But leave the real one alone!

You can watch the video below—feel free to skip the first minute of undulating flames. What do others think? Nina, Susannah, you thought the David video was "charming" and "awesome." But do you agree this one goes too far?

Tags: david after dentist, mgmt, music video

Samantha, David's dad in the dentist video was his actual dad, so we hold him to the standard of life, not art. I actually found this MGMT video refreshing, as an antidote to the Disney-fied, chock full o' lessons kid fare that's out today. (Hola, Dora!) Once upon a time, fairy tales helped kids make sense of their outsized terrors and emotions. They did not teach them how to wash their hands, or say "recycle" in Spanish. Babies do cry frantically when they are left alone in a crib, as if—and many a parent has said this—there were monsters in there. Or they swear they see monsters in the cracks of the ceiling, or the closet. This kid's pretty, distracted mother does not see the monsters, only he does, which suggests they are not really there. In the narrative of the video, his mother is more interested in her iPhone than her baby, so he, even more than other babies, is left to make sense of his world alone. All those people on the street staring at him, the policeman—they could be angels, or monsters. How could he know?

Now as for that actual child actor, MGMT claims that no live children were harmed in the making of the video. They do not elaborate. Who knows? Maybe they spliced in all those monsters later, or maybe they did make that poor kid walk through the gauntlet of horrors. It's no worse a hell than Max from Where the Wild Things Are dreamed up for himself. But if the kid was screaming with terror and fear, and they kept the cameras rolling, that one is on his real parents, not MGMT.

Tags: exploiting kids, mgmt video