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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.
I realize the importance of having a rating that differentiates between a kid's movie and one for young adults, but as a non-parent I look on it with contempt. Ever since the R rating begun to be widely enforced, studios have toned down violent films so they can still have a chance at making money from the younger market. For example: I might actually have gone to see the recent Alien vs. Predator film had it been rated R, but since it was PG-13, I decided to wait until I can rent it. Enforcement of the ratings system, and the studios' response to it, has dealt the death blow for true horror/action films, because studios must now focus on making higher quality products for a more discerning audience if they want to make profit and carry the R rating. Instead they choose to neuter their movies and add some more special effects and popular cliché to entice the kids.
I'm not suggesting that just because a movie is rated PG-13 that it is, by default, a bad movie. What I am suggesting is that continuations of previously successful films, and modern horror/action flicks will never be what we all remember them to be. We will never see truly cheesy and senselessly bloody movies like Evil Dead ever again.
Also, if anyone hasn't heard of a decent NC-17 movie since Showgirls, this one looks promising. I saw the trailer for it the other day.
PG13 has been able to watch itself.
Did anyone else think they were raising the allowed age for letting kids into a PG-13 movie to 20?
Or maybe 20 year olds could be naked now in a PG-13 movie.
Or... how old are the Olsen Twins again?
For a second there, I thought PG-13 was about to become PG-20!
CNN has a story about the 20 year anniversary of PG-13
In a related story... nobody cares.
What I don't get, is that the rating systems are inconsistent. Here in Quebec, most movies that are rated R elsewhere are rated PG-13. Take Hannibal for instance, I believe in the U.S. it was rated R, in Quebec it was PG-13 or maybe even PG-14, and in Brittish Columbia I think it was rated PG. How can anyone make sense of anything when the rating system is inconsistent? If you ask me, it's just a waste of time, completely meaningless.
For those of you who don't know what I'm referring to, in the U.K. cut of Temple of Doom, the British censors refused to screen the movie without deleting the heart-removal scene, and the scene of Short Round being whipped, and maybe one or two other scenes. (The recently released Indy boxed set in the U.K. kept with the original theatrical versions, which pissed me off when I realised the difference.) As you might expect - and as I mentioned above - the heart scene was sorta crucial for making sense of a couple points of the movie.
The fine brat-esque-pack Red Dawn.
Why is this "knews" piece even relevant? CNN has a pro-MPAA, pro-RIAA, Valenti puff piece every couple days. You don't see a whole lot of well-rounded copyright discourse on the major media news outlets. (Gee, I wonder why...) CNN: We're tough on music fans. We like suing kids and grandmas. We equate infringement with theft. We are fair and balanced, too.
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An interesting bit of movie rating history: when the MPAA brought out the original system (G/M/R/X), they trademarked the first three but not "X." Pornographers were thus free to use it, and it came to be associated with "pornography" instead of "adult content," requiring the creation of the "NC-17" rating years later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-rated
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
The problem is with the unintended consequences of the ratings system. In theory, there should be 5 different ratings (G, PG, PG13, R, NC17). In reality, the ratings start to take on meanings other than the ones they were intended to have. For example, G means "kid's movie" and NC17 means "sex" so studios deliberately avoid putting out movies that have these ratings. Sometimes this means adding an expletive or two for the sole purpose of getting the movie up to PG instead of G.
I've heard of the Catholic rating system. One thing they do that the MPAA doesn't is they look at how the sex/violence/whatever is portrayed and not just whether it exists. So if someone gets murdered, but the movie shows the consequences of violence rather than glorifying it, the Catholic system tends to take this into account. Of course, it's all based on the Catholic Church's idea of morality, so movies can also get nailed for things like showing unmarried couples living together, gay/lesbian relationships, etc.
They must be doing something right, though. I believe Gigli was rated "Offensive."
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
Though my position on this issue probably doesn't sync with the norm, I've found the problem with PG-13 to be the exact opposite of yours. Sometimes I'd just like to see a good movie without any of the questionable junk. (I know, I know - lots of people seem to prefer to see the stuff I just called junk in their moves - I'd rather that stuff be in movies rated R though.) Movies which for the most part probably could be rated PG throw some gratuitous scene or language in just to get the coveted PG-13 rating so that the teenage crowd won't dismiss it. So, what you end up with are movies which are mostly pretty good, but have some questionable content which may or may not fit with the rest of the story or the intended audience in one small scene just to get the more mature rating. So, from my perspective, the PG-13 rating has actually worsened my movie going experience. But, I recognize I'll be hard pressed to have very many other people on Slashdot agree. Let the puritanical accusations commence!
You mean films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey? That's probably my all time favorite. I find that "adult" film really means adolescent film. I don't care to spend hours and hours filling my head full of blooshed and gore. There's a whole universe of stuff out there that could make for interesting films, but people are so in love with violence that that's what we get. Either that or just plain stupid, sappy stuff.
Long ago I decided to vote with my buck and just stop going to the movies.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
I was surprised to find out that the motion picture rating system is a voluntary system. It is enforced by the ownership/management of a theater and not by law (like age limits on alcohol or driving).
I found this out when Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was released this year. There was such an uproar about the film being rated 'R' (and thus a "Bush led conspiracy to keeping some people from seeing it") that a couple of theater owners in the Bay Area said they wouldn't enforce the 'R' rating on the film.
I'm not sure what would happen if a theater owner consistently ignored the rating system.
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Roy: Chew, if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes.
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-If
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