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Tuesday, June 19, 2007
What do movie ratings mean?
Does the current movie ratings system help you? How do you determine what movie is appropriate for what age?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There are lots of big budget blockbusters this summer and lots of kids BEGGING to see them. Have you taken your kids to see “Pirates of the Caribbean 3”, “Spiderman 3”, or the new “Fantastic Four?”
What assumptions do you make when you see a PG, PG-13 or R rating? What is too much violence, explicit language or sex for what age? Do the current ratings help you know what is appropriate or do you turn to Web sites with more specific content information to decide before you go?
I haven’t seen the new “Spiderman” and “Pirates,” but I remember being shocked last summer by the number of young children (not 10 or 11 year olds but 4, 5 year olds) attending these movies. In the opening sequence to Pirates 2, there are prisoners left for dead in these holding cages while birds come and graphically pluck their eyes out. A giant sea monster brings down whole ships, murky swamps with scary voodoo ladies, undead pirates that get shot and recover. While great fun for teens, parents and even some older tweens, I just can’t imagine what parents are thinking bringing small children to see that.
Last year, I also was mortified for a young teen-ager who went with her parents to see “Borat.” I was so embarrassed for her sitting next to her parents as Borat wrestled with that very fat man, and we were seeing all the twigs and berries and worse yet the fat guy’s ravine. I wondered if her parents regretted bringing her along.
Entertainment Weekly’s Mark Harris wrote an interesting editorial this week about how the NC-17 rating needs to be scrapped. His argument is that all of the other ratings are just recommendations to parents and don’t bear the force of a law like the NC-17 does. He says parents think it’s OK to take their kids to R-rated movies because the R is just a recommendation. He thinks parents need more specific information about what’s happening in the scenes so they can make better decisions about what’s appropriate for their kids. Check out his column in full.
Tell us what you think? How do you make decisions about what movies are appropriate for your kids? Does the current rating system help? How would you change it to be more useful?
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