mookyman

Reading this thread, and seeing how iffy it is whether or not the study is true, I'm thinking, "This is the best Harvard can do?"

PopcornTreeCt

There used to be nudity on US Television back in the '70s. Before the FCC was estabilished I would say that was TV's most daring time. I've seen clips of, uh boobies during game shows on old TV shows, on other forums.

DRG

This is the part I don't buy at all. PG is basically a kiddie rating nowadays, albeit kiddie movies with a slight bent (Shrek, Grinch). Also family-friendly movies with very mild grown up content apply (Miracle, Remember the Titans).

Overall, I think it fluctuates based on certain types of things. It's a bit too simplistic to say "ratings are more lax now" or "ratings are stricter now".

If I were to compare today with the movies from the 80s when I grew up:

Gore: Less strict today
In the late 80s especially, they cut gore down to practically nothing. Horror stuff especially in the past few years has been a lot gorier in R-rated editions (Final Destination2 comes to mind, there's no way that would've got an R in 1988.)

Nudity: More strict today
Like others have said, boobs in PG, full frontal in PG-13 (and for both sexes, I know there is one PG-13 80's comedy that had a shower room scene that showed guy's members, can't remember which one though)

Sexual comments/references: Less strict today
Seems you can get away with TALKING about it, or making non-nude references in PG-13 a lot more. Under the pants erections (like the Anchorman one listed above, or Nutty Professor 2 for instance) as an example.

Drug use: More strict today
I believe at some point they changed this so on-camera drug use gets you an R, but I'm not 100% on this.

Rypro 525

for sexual comments, they still can't really make explicit references to sex. didn't "bring it on" have to edit a reference to "giving head" to get a pg-13?

Giles

um, I don't know about this one... the 'Green Tag' Trailer for Twist features a brief scene of one of the character's shooting up some drugs into his arm.