Rypro 525

PG-13 Today Was an R Yesterday, Says Study


The MPAA ratings board over the past decade has relaxed its standards in judging films for violence and sex, according to a study by the Harvard School of Public Health. The study, released on Tuesday, described a "ratings creep" in which current films that are rated PG or PG-13 are being released with more sexual or violent content than films with the same ratings ten years ago. "The MPAA appears to tolerate increasingly more extreme content in any given age-based rating category over time," the study said. It went on to call for an overhaul of the ratings system and suggested that whatever system emerges, it apply to all forms of entertainment, including music, home video, and games. However, MPAA spokesman Rich Taylor told today's (Wednesday) New York Times: "A single body can't rate everything that comes through the pipeline. ... It's logistically unfeasible. With the volume of hours of TV and cable and film and games and music, it becomes a mathematical impossibility."
TV or Not Tv?

sure the violence has been upped some (the pg13 cut of daredevil is R rated material imo, but the lanauge and sexual content is no worse. they still cant show boobs, (unless its a quick flash like in "something's got to give") and they still can't say the f word more then at least 3 times, as long as the word is not used sexually


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Giles

jeesh, I was trying to respond but you got all wishy washy there Rypro and altered/removed the original thread and made it into a poll

Giles

what I was going to say was that the rating's board is comprised of parents, so what they might accept in terms of film content they might condone for the next film. Violence fine, nudity a no-no. The 12-13 year old boy that was a row behind me (alone) at 'Anchorman' was vocally appalled at the scene, he kept on exclaiming, "ugh" "oh my god". I am sure the conversation after the film, from his parent's was very amusing: "So how was the movie?" "oh, it was okay, I didn't get all of the inside 70's jokes and there was this one scene... um.... nevermind"

Groucho

Disagree. Back in the 1970's and 1980's there were several PG-rated films with nudity.

Tafellappen

Two words: Logan's Run

Red Dog

Who cares. When I saw T3, half the theaters was parents with their 8 year olds there.

Red Dog

Yep. Airplane was rated PG and had that brief shot of those luscious jugs.

Joe Molotov

I don't know, I don't really see it. Watching King Arthur, it seemed pretty violent for a PG-13 movie, but then remember when the bad guy ripped the other dude's heart out in Temple of Doom and that was PG? They were complaining about Anchorman having a few F-bombs, but they dropped an F-bomb (among other things) in Spaceballs and it was rated PG. And as far as sex and nudity goes, you really can't get away with anything other than implied sex and innuendos in a PG-13 movie, where in the old days you could show boobs and still get a PG rating. Just look at THX-1138, it came out in the 70's and has the holographic strippers and one scene almost has full-frontal nudity and it still got a PG rating.

Qui Gon Jim

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was the first PG-13 film.

Remember the fuss over Red Dawn? Sheesh!

Groucho

No, it came out before the PG-13 rating was created, and was rated PG. The controversy around it helped create the new rating, however.

Giles

Drat! (not fast enought on the response to that) ... so... Red Dawn and Dreamscape were the first two film's to be PG-13 rated.

Dr. DVD

I remember those movies as being pretty high in the level of violence. I think that over time the ratings board has gotten more strict as far as sex and nudity is concerned but loosened up considerably in terms of violence. It seems that as long as you don't show blood, the skies the limit in terms of the amount people you can kill in a PG-13 movie. I actually found the level of violence in both DareDevil and X2 to be approaching the R level, but I'm glad it wasn't compromised.


I really don't think it's the amount of violence in a movie that will get it the R as much as the gruesome nature of the act involved.

tanman

But remember, the study says ten years ago which puts us in 1994. I don't know, I don't think they have gotten that bad. But then again I have grown up a lot in ten years.

Plus the ratings scheme is more along that lines of what is socially acceptable at the time then a set ruling. I for one applaud the idea that they are putting WHY it is rated that way. I might be more willing to show a 13 yo the Matrix movies then say American Beautiful. If it is "just" fantasy violence I think that affects a child less then realistic violence (ie homocides or rape) or adult situation where you have to be somewhat mature enough to think about.

PopcornTreeCt

Where's the PG yesterday is R today option?

Giles

Folk's, let's just be happy the MPAA isn't as fascist as the FCC

Inverse

"Where's the PG yesterday is R today option?"

Exactly.

Silly and contrived study, since it only went back a decade, a tiny drop in the bucket. As people have already noted, the 70s and 80s were by any standard more lenient about what kids and teens can officially see in movie theaters. Times change, and ratings change with them, however slowly. (shrug)

The real question is, WTF does this study have to do with public health and why is the Harvard School of Public Health mixed up in it? This country faces many very real public heath problems: infant mortality, West Nile virus, SARS, AIDS, etc. Whether KANGAROO JACK is too risque for ten year olds is definitely not one of them.

tanman

Yeah, I was wondering about that. I guess all of this stuff that I have been learning about Category A agents, Hospital administration, outbreak control, universal precautions, FDA, EPA, CDC, APIC, JCAHO...I guess all of that is useless compared to the "MPAA PG-13 vs. R rating a ten year retrospective study".

squi23

Europe is much more lenient with what they allow on TV.

Do the have their own ratings system or do our ratings stay with the movies internationally?

I mean, I love my country, but I think the US has it's priorities all wrong when it comes to these sorts of issues (nudity, decency/indecency, morality, violence).

The powers that be have their heads up their respective a$$e$ and they're so far gone conservative so as not to even be funny.

My $0.02

Giles

getting back to what I had originally noted, I find it very interesting when comparing movies from the 80's, Hollywood is playing it safe when it comes to horror and R-rated comedies (specifically those involving nudity and sex).

Example: 1984's Hardbodies featured many scenes of teenages having sex that nowadays would have made both the studio execs and the MPAA nervous and brandishing their scissors.

Mortuary (1983) the copulation scene in front of the fireplace was surprisingly graphic, and would have never seen the theatrical R-rated cut if submitted to the MPAA nowadays.

The Prowler - the mixture of nudity and murder during the shower scene, is very vicious in it's R-rated form and is even more amazing that Blue Underground found an unrated cut of the film, that featured even more gore that got spliced out for the sake of it's R-rating. The current 'unrated' DVD is an excellent showcase for Savini's brilliant makeup effects.

Jackskeleton

I think this is true and also false. the ratings system is going to be a reflection of our own society and the level of tolorance of the parents.

A lot of times with comedies and horror like mentioned above are just playing it safe because the level of what might be questionable material to one parent might not be an issue for another.

I still don't see any point in arguing or bitching about the MPAA, they are a suggested rating and can easily be ignored.

Giles

Technically no, the MPAA rating should have no bearing on what the international market's audience can and cannot see. But unfortunately it's usually the case.

Examples:

John Woo's Hard Target - R-rated in the US, unrated internationally.

Paramount's Shiver and Jade: cut for R-rated theatrical distribution, International markets: longer more explicit cut of the films. Yet, the Friday the 13th series (sans Part 1 which was a Warner Bros. international release), cut by the MPAA for US distribution, is the same cut for the international print of the film. For shame, since Asian markets which have historically been the saving grace for explicity violent films were denied the more violent cuts of the films.

Verhoeven's films, Robocop and Total Recall, cut by the MPAA never seen internationaly in their unrated forms (the former eventually restored on home video, the latter rumoured for possible future restoration). If the American ratings were truly only applicable for domestic US theatrical release, film's like these could be found uncensored in other parts of the world, but as it all boils down, the studios feel once a film gets marred by MPAA rules and regulations, the idea of restoring cut footage for foreign distribution becomes a nil idea.

Iron_Giant

Entertainment as a whole has gone more left than right.

1. Music:
-20's, 30's, 40's, 50's (Most tame music)
-60's, 70's (Music with meaning, they had a reasons to sing and points to make. But the lyrics started to push the limit.)
-80's, 90's, 2000's (Rap and Gangster Rap. Had to create rating system.)

2. TV
-50's and 60's (very clean)
-70's (started to go a little more wild)
-80's (little more wild)
-90's (part nudity now on airwaves, more 4 letter words...)
-20's (Jackson's breast made people understand it has gone to far, and it needed to be pulled back a bit)

3. Movies
-20's, 30's, 40's (99.9% of the movies were "Clean")
-50's (some movies start to have edge)
-60's (movies really start to have real edge to them)
-70's, 80's (rating system so people understand what they are going to see)
90's, 2000's (rating system starts not to mean very much)

Everything in our country is going more liberal, not conservative. If you do not believe me, then go look at the history of our country and you will see that all changes have gone to or is going to the liberal side.

I do not want a fight, but look at where marriage is heading. Little by little, it is going from meaning only one thing, to meaning almost anything you want it to mean.

Inverse

"-20's, 30's, 40's, 50's (Most tame music)"

Heh, that's what YOU think. I could rattle off a long list of 20s and 30s songs about sex, drugs, and roc....errr, jazz, the devil's music!

Josh-da-man

In the 1980s, just after the creation of the rating, PG-13 movies featured quite a bit of nudity. I remember "European Vacation" had two different topless female scenes, and in "The Woman in Red," Kelly LeBrock gave a clear, albeit brief, flash of her downstairs fur. Both of those movies would probably pull an R today.

Tafellappen

Haven't seen many pre-code movies?