PG-13 Rating Turns 20

Ant writes "CNN has a story about the 20 year anniversary of PG-13 and how it was created/born from two of Steven Spielberg's movies. (Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom and Gremlins)" Oh, Mola Ram and your heart-removing antics, little did you know the profound impact you would have.

Comments

And what was the first PG-13 movie???

[Anonymous Coward]

The fine brat-esque-pack Red Dawn.

It depends on jurisdiction

[Hamster Lover]

All the provinces in Canada have a movie review board that is empowered with determining a rating on all publically released movies. What one province will rate PG another might give 14A (think PG14, it's a Canadian thing).

Quebec and Canada in general, seem to have a more liberal ratings policy than their American counterparts. I had the same reaction when I was out for a movie in Texas and saw several movies rated "R" that were 14A back home in BC. Another difference that comes to mind is while the Canadian ratings system is mandated by provincal law, the American ratings system was a compromise created by the MPAA to stave off government censorship (if memory serves).

Something else to note is while in the U.S. the MPAA rating carries over onto the video release, the Canadian distributors apply a "Canadian Home Video" (or somesuch) rating that reflects the liberal Canadian ratings during the theatrical release. No province that I know of classifies home movies other than adult, thus the "Canadian Home Video" rating system.

Ratings Creep

[superyooser]

It already has! Researchers call it R-13.

A Christian ministry advising parents about the content of popular movies says its not surprised by a Harvard University study finding films within the same rating class are getting raunchier, noting it made the same discovery four years ago.

ChildCare Action Project Movie Ministry indicates the Harvard data echoes its own findings from 2000. The Harvard study, released last month, shows content of movies with specific ratings is getting stronger, meaning a film rated PG-13 today likely would have received an R rating several years ago.

Researchers looked at films released between 1992 and 2003. The study found more sex and violence in later PG movies and more of the same, plus more profanity, in PG-13 movies. It also found R-rated movies contained more profanity and sex.

Today's PG-13 movies, it was found, are inching toward what R-rated movies looked like in 1992.

Even films rated G were found to have more violence, especially in animated features.

The CAP Ministry notes it scrutinized films for eight years using a specific set of standards and mathematical formulae. The group's statistical analysis found PG-13 movies consistently including more objectionable elements as the years went on, leading the researchers to coin the rating "R-13."

"In the first five years the percentage of R-13 movies more than quadrupled (an increase of 459 percent) which says in the year 2000, 450 percent more of the PG-13 audiences were fed R-rated programming than in 1996/7," the Christian research said.

Researchers from both CAP Ministry and Harvard noted the movie rating system used by the Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA, is too general.

Said CAP Ministry founder Tom Carder: "The CAP Analysis Model could replace the MPAA. And the CAP Analysis Model provides it objectively, not vulnerable to mood and preference subjectivity so you can be in a better position to have the information you need to make an informed moral decision whether a film is fit for your kids (or yourself)."

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