Harvard researchers have determined that over the past decade there has been what they've termed "ratings creep" in regards to PG and PG-13 films.
"'The findings demonstrate that ratings creep has occurred over the last decade and that today's movies contain significantly more violence, sex and profanity on average than movies of the same rating a decade ago,' Thompson wrote in a release accompanying the study."
Um, is this a surprise to any parent who pays attention to this sort of thing? I've certainly noticed the continual pushing of the envelope in PG-13 films over the last couple of years. All you have to do to make an R-rated film PG-13 is to change the color of blood from red to black (or just remove the blood from a scene that should be bloody as hell), and show full nudity as long as you just barely obscure nipples and genitalia.
Look at the recent film, Van Helsing for example. You had scenes where an arm is ripped off a character and there is no blood. Another character falls from a 20 story building, the camera shows him lying in the street, and he looks like he tripped over a shoelace. His head should have looked like an exploded melon. As far as nudity, the female vampires were buck-naked, but had breasts devoid of nipples. Other than that, there was nothing left to the imagination.
Rating? PG-13.
The other annoying aspect of "ratings creep" is how it is also apparent in the subject matter of films. Beyond the foul language, violence, or nudity, the topics explored in certain films can also raise it to what should be an R rating. I would hold up the film Chicago as an example of a film that I think should have been rated R.
It's gotten to the point where I even have to screen PG films before I let my daughter watch them. Case in point: Shrek 2. Sure it was funny, but did it really need to have jokes in there about cross-dressing, tight butts, and guys wearing women's thong underwear? Yeesh.
That's just plain wrong... I shouldn't have to worry about the content of a PG film for an 8 year old.
Source: Reuters.com
Article comments
1 - Mark Hasty
Since theaters rarely enforce the ratings anyways, and anybody can sneak from one theater to the other, I have a hard time figuring out what purpose movie ratings serve anymore.
2 - Mark Hasty
Oh, and while Shrek 2 got a PG, a totally unobjectionable movie (Whale Rider) got a PG-13. Farcical.
3 - Vic
You know, I did see Whale Rider, and I can't recall anything in there that warranted a PG-13 either...
Anyone else seen it that can offer an explanation or reminder?
Vic
4 - Mark Hasty
The official explanation is "drug references." I sure can't remember any, though.
5 - Vic
Thanks. If it was so subtle that I can't remember it, the PG-13 was stupid.
On the other hand, the recent release "Sleepover" get's a PG. I could tell it should be PG-13 just from the commercials. Check out Screenit.com's overview of the film to see what I mean.
Vic
6 - Mark Hasty
Interesting. That certainly sounds PG-13 to me.
It also sounds like Screenit didn't really see any overt drug references in "Whale Rider" either.
7 - Pappy
I actually saw Ebert slam the MPAA for giving Whale Rider a PG-13. On Ebert & Roeper he showed the brief clip of someone with a joint that slammed it with a PG-13 rating.
The fact of the matter is that the MPAA rating system is so political it's insane:
Boogie Nights is a flick about the porn industry filled with tons of sex/nudity. It gets an R rating.
Orgazmo is a flick about the porn industry with hardly any nudity, but jokes about Mormons, including the main premise of the film (a devout Mormon ends up as a big Porno Star). After Utah's Lobbying, an NC-17 rating.
Remember that NC-17 is a big deal, since most movie theaters won't carry NC-17 movies, that's why it's called "The Kiss of Death."
"The Dreamers" never played where I live, but I can buy/rent it now (although I am not sure if Hollywood/Blockbuster carry the NC-17 version of the DVD for rent)
Ratings are also about money. I bet the people behind Shrek 2 made it so it WOULD garner a PG rating. Why? To make sure adults enjoy it enough to cough up cash. Adults tend to stay away from G rated movies.
But I would suggest this:
Look at broadcast TV. You can more bad words without bleeping than you could 10 years ago. This suggests that the MPAA ratings are simply being adjusted for the times.
Shrek 2 would be have been PG-13 10 years, perhaps rated R 20 years ago, but today its PG. Perhaps in 2014 Shrek 2 will be considered a G rated movie for everyone.
Look at the upcoming blockbuster (can't wait to see it) "The Village." PG-13. Come on. 10 years ago this "sure to scare kids" movie would be definitely R. Today it's PG-13. I also bet, like I said before, that the studio wanted this to be PG-13 for more cash. They probably made Shamaylan cut enough to go from R to PG-13. Look for deleted scenes on DVD.
8 - Vic
A different rating definitely effects box office receipts, and I agree with your assessment of Shrek 2 getting a PG vs G.
One thing that annoys me is that you can have a movie that should be rated R, the "first cut" gets an R from the MPAA, but the studio wants it to be PG-13 for the extra box office receipts that come with that rating. So what happens they trim a bit here and there to get it down to a PG-13. What the heck is that? A vicious assault is cut from 2 minutes to 1:30, with some of the blood removed, and that makes it ok?
What crap.
It's still a vicious assault... trimming it doesn't turn it into a benign scene.
The same goes for sex scenes. Trim the explicit parts and then it's supposedly O.K. It's *still* a sex scene.
Vic
9 - Mark Hasty
I watched Rat Race on TBS last night and I was amazed at some of the words that weren't bleeped for broadcast. (Not offended, since I'd seen the movie in the theater, after all; just amazed.) So maybe the MPAA is just adapting to changing standards or something.
10 - Vic
Yeah, the downside of the recent TV ratings system is that since shows are now "rated", they can include things that weren't acceptable before. Hey, they warned us it was TV-14, didn't they?
Vic
11 - Dirtgrain
Overall, it seems to me that there is less nudity in films today than there was in the seventies and eighties. I can understand the objections to sex scenes, but what is wrong with nudity?
On violence, I read a study that found that movies that showed the consequences of the violent acts committed and that humanized the victims led to less violent and aggressive behavior in children viewers. Maybe that A-Team did make me more prone to go run into a hail of bullets.
I saw a ton of violence and nudity in movies as a kid. When I was in middle school, my friends and I saw A Nightmare on Elm Street six times at the theater. I remember when Warriors played on The Movie Channel. My friends and I showed up at school the next day wanting to form a gang (a wimpy Ann Arbor elementary school gang, mind you). I watched every martial arts movie that they showed on TV. Come to think of it, I got into a lot of fights all the way through high school. Since then, I haven't gotten into any fights (excepting a few drunken brawls with friends that maybe crossed the line).
I can't make up my mind on the issue, though. Part of me feels that we are going way overboard in sheltering our children. In Viking times, kids had to see their villages raided, family and friends murdered in front of them. In parts of the Middle East and Africa and South and Central America, the same is true. I think that one such experience would outweigh any of the impact a kid would get from thousands of violent movies. I have seen so many conflicting studies about media (film, TV, music) and the influence on children. Perhaps it's natural to our species to be violent and to witness violent acts in our everyday lives. Maybe violent movies allow us to release our violent tendencies and aggressive behavior in a passive way.
Yet violence is clearly no good for anybody, regardless of how natural it is. Perhaps restrictions on violent content would make us a more peaceful society (intra-nationally and internationally).
But are we any more violent than in times past? This country was founded in a fury of bloodshed, from the American Revolution to the massacre of Native Americans to the Wild West. If you support the war in Iraq, and any such future endeavors, then you ought to call for more violence in the media so as to better prepare our future troops.
12 - Vic
"On violence, I read a study that found that movies that showed the consequences of the violent acts committed and that humanized the victims led to less violent and aggressive behavior in children viewers."
Exactly. That's the point I was trying to make with my references to "Van Helsing". Your "A-Team" mention is valid as well.
When the consequences of violence are removed, and children/teens have no other frame of reference (as opposed to your Viking comment, where they see the reality of brutal violence), they get a false view of what violence is.
If you're going to show it in a movie, show it accurately so that we can see the horrific consequences of someone getting shot. Don't "clean it up" so that it seems clean and easy.
It's a lot easier to get desensitized if it doesn't seem that big a deal in the first place.
Vic
13 - Dirtgrain
Word, Vic.
I also read a study a while ago that said that by the time a kid reaches the age of eighteen, he or she will have, on average, spent around 17,000 hours in front of a TV--as opposed to around 11,000 hours in a classroom. Maybe a bigger issue than ratings is the need to get kids to do other things than be passive-viewer couch potatoes so much (same for video games, regardless of whether they are labeled interactive). Since there is so much crap out there, we could try to get kids to spend less time watching it. See Johnny CAN read, he's just not interested anymore.
14 - Vic
Dude, don't get me started on that one.
Don't forget video games as well. It's not just because of fast food that kids are obese today. They don't get out and move their butts anymore.
Vic
15 - Eric Olsen
very good topic, thanks Screen. Of course there is creep and it is related to television - the ratings system tries to maintain a broad equilibrium between them so as more is allowed on TV, more is allowed in films. I wouldn't say this renders ratings in general obsolete though - if nothing else they are a guideline for parents as long as you stay up with wht means what.
As far as trimming for ratings goes: this is a result of attempts to have an objective system rather than a subjective one. If you say "this, this, and this" are waht constitute each rating then the filmmakers will do exactly that in order to get the rating they want, following the letter rather than the spirit of the law. But if you have a subjective "I know it when I see it system," then people will complain about that as well.
16 - Dirtgrain
Sorry to be slightly off-topic, but I just found this article: Cut kids' TV 'To Protect Health':
Children should watch no more than two hours of TV a day to protect their future health, scientists have warned.
Maybe I can sue the TV industry because they are to blame for my spare tire.A Lancet study found adults who had been avid TV watchers as children were more likely be overweight, to smoke and to have high cholesterol.
Researchers from the University of Otago, New Zealand, said parents should 'lead by example' and turn the TV off.
Other experts said the study bolstered the argument for banning junk food ads during children's programmes.
The researchers followed 1,000 children born in 1972 and 1973 from the ages of three up to the age of 26. . . .
It was found watching more than two hours of TV a day as children and teenagers was linked with an increased risk of being overweight, smoking and having poor cardiovascular fitness - a measure of how well the heart is working.
It was found 17% of weight problems, 15% of raised blood cholesterol, 17% of smoking and 15% of poor cardiovascular fitness could be linked to excessive TV viewing in childhood and adolescence.
17 - Jim Carruthers
I'm confused, I always thought Jack Valenti was the Ratings Creep.
18 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Whilst i didn't see anything especially un-"kiddie friendly" in Shrek 2 (i mean, is a bloke in a dress such a big deal? whats so harmful about that?? Mind you, the cat licking its nuts might take a bit of explaining to the young uns, upon watching the utterly wonderful Spider-man 2 the other night, i did find myself wondering how in the hell it got off with a PG (this is in the UK, where the first flick had to get a PG after parents objected about the 12 rating). That was a seriously violent flick, in that there maybe weren't anymore punches and what not than in anything else, but those punches had real IMPACT. That amazing scene with the Evil Dead tentacles that culminates in the suggestion that a chainsaw is about to be weilded in a non-DIY manner, is fairly rough for a PG. I don't think i would object to having kids watch it, maybe thats cause i was brought up on Commando and what not. (mind you, wasn't The Duke the one writing about the wonders of Cannibal Holocaust not so long ago? Parents, on second thoughts, kids should never see nothing)
Just seemed especially violent for such a low rating.
On a final note, i used to judge flicks i could watch in front of my parents based on the rating (instead of the other way round, which is, i believe, the intended application). American Pie got a 15, which in my opinion means parent-friendly. Let a man say that erections barely conceealed with socks five minutes in put an end to that, and they were sent out of the room immediately.
And finally finally, PG does, after all, mean "parental guidance". in otherwords, we think its ok, but maybe you'd wanna check first. So see the flick yourself. Thats what the rating suggests.
19 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
another point i just thought - in some cases, films go the opposite way, with regards the ratings. For years (although i think the mood has shifted a bit), horror flicks in the UK HAD to be rated 18 in order to have any credibility at all. This led to nonsense like Haxan, a film from the 20's, having an "18" rating on the cover, even though the certificate at the start of the film is 15. same applies to cannibal holocaust 2, which, in order to disguise the fact that its not as vicious (nor as good, nor anything in the least to do with it) as its predeccesor, has an 18 on the cover, even though the BBFC's web-site has it passed as 15.
Of course, the BBFC are much more leniant these days with regards horror. Stuff like Jason x (which, granted, is cartoony violence, but still, man, that lass got her head frozen and smashed) got a 15. five years ago it would've been 18 easily.
20 - Vic
In the US, Spiderman 2 was rated PG-13, which I think is appropriate for that particular film (which I *really* enjoyed, BTW).
Good point concerning what "PG" stands for. I think many parents do not provide that guidance as far as what films they allow their kids to see. In my mind, PG is basically for kid's movies that are too intense for those up to about 5 or 6 years old. G means it wouldn't even scare your 3 year old daughter.
The problem is that many parents abrogate their responsibility to monitor what their kids watch. Maybe the R rating should actually mean that no one under 17 can get in and no one under 13 should be allowed into a PG-13 rated movie.
If parents would educate themselves in this arena, viewership of movies that pushed the limits would drop, and the industry would adjust things accordingly.
Of course the whole parental education thing makes me want to write a whole 'nother article on a different topic....
Vic
21 - bhw
When I took my young children to see Shrek, the theatre played an "approved for all audiences" preview of Spiderman 2.
It was so loud and violent, both of my kids were stunned, as were my husband and I. And it was long -- it seemed like it would NEVER end. It amazes me that people think that explosions and fighting and screaming are acceptable clips for all audiences to see.
The "adult" humor in Shrek went over my kids' heads. But the aggression and violence in the Spiderman preview didn't.
I accept responsibility for taking my kids to a PG movie. But since the Spiderman preview was approved for all audiences, I'm not sure we wouldn't have seen it before a G movie, too.
22 - Vic
bhw,
That's another huge peeve of mine. Trailers for PG-13 movies shown during PG films. I'm pretty sure I've seen intense trailers during G films as well.
Of course don't forget the suggestive commercials that they package with PG films as well.
Vic
23 - jemma
15 -- only suitable for persons aged 15 years and over
18 -- only suitable for persons aged 18 years and over
12 -- only suitable for persons aged 12 years and over
12A -- children must accompanied by and adult if under twelve.
U -- universal, suitable for all, a family viewing.
Uc -- suitable for all, particularly young children.
PG -- Parental Guidance, some scenes may be unsuitable for young children.
24 - jemma
hey! i wud appreciate it if any1 told me wot a pg-13 rating means!!!
25 - jemma
oh, and wats an R rating????