Hollywood Ratings Getting Looser

Heres an interesting audio feed with Kim Masters, an award winning writer and reporter for NPR
commenting on the ratings creep topic (For those of you too lazy to read ;)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5045413

Trivia: What do the family film "The Jungle Book" and the action thriller "True Lies" have in common? (Answer at the bottom of this post)

http://sheknows.com/about/look/5897.htm

I know many people dont care too much about ratings creeping because many of us are over 18 but I just thought it would be interesting to point out that films with "with R ratings averaged 62 violent acts, PG-13 averaged 55 and PG averaged 56 (Sheknows.com 2006)!"

This means that the only general difference between an R rated movie and a PG-13 movie for kids is the frequency of voilence portrayed within a given film. How is this supposed to be helpful to anyone that cares what their kids see?

The ratings system itself (G, PG, R, etc) itself proves to be highly ambiguous whereas it seems like the descriptions found in the captions of the film ratings to be more informative. So why bother with a rating system based on age?

Why is this important to me? Well, even though I am not yet a parent, I dont want to be taking my younger cousins to see a movie and in the middle of the movie theres an act of violence or sex which will shape their perspective of society or how to handle themselves given similar circumstances as the ones portrayed in the given movie.

On a side note, I saw the movie "Hostel" on the television just recently and was blown away by how far the violence and gore actually went. Even though im 22, I dont think seeing someones skin being peeled off and eye ball cut off should have a place in any film. It really makes me wonder if movie producers have any limits or if the regulators have any control anymore over what gets out there..


Answer: Both contain similar amounts of violence despite respective PG and R ratings.

One Swear Word Rule? F--- that!

Creeping: "to advance or develop gradually so as to infringe on or supplant something else..." (Dictionary.com 2006)

Article: http://www.decentfilms.com/sections/articles/2534

Here is an interesting article which describes a classic incident which im sure many of you can identify with when visiting the movie theatres. However, I think many of the younger generation (I myself included) has become so desensitized to hearing profanity either in our working environments, school, or especially when hanging out with friends that we are no longer recognizing profanity as "bad words" (according to Mom and Dad).

What has this done to affect the regulation on movies!? Whats happening to our society?! Is this what the whole preaching of "acceptance" in society is about?! What if you were a parent? Would that change your idea the next time you think of taking your kid to the movie theatres? I know I would.

Excerpt:

"The ’one f-word’ rule has been inconsistently applied," Minow agrees, "but it is one of the very few ’rules’ the MPAA will admit to having and of course it is absurd on its face." Clearly, she’s right. For one thing, saying that you can use the word only once is also an invitation to be sure to get it in once.

Hi everyone,

Abstract: This blog is a ongoing discussion and exploration into the direction that movies are taking in terms of violence and the ever so vague rating system.

Feel free to post comments or reviews about movies but please try to keep the thread on topic.