Airport, one of the movies Airplane! spoofs, features an almost explicit scene of a suicide bombing aboard an airliner in flight. A pregnant woman is injured in the explosion, and a plane load of people spend the entire third act in immediate mortal danger. This movie is rated G.
Ice Age, the Disney (somehow not Pixar) movie whose plot boils down to “Three Men And A Baby, Except Animals” is rated PG for “Mild Peril.”
Raiders of the Lost Ark features explicit scenes of people being shot including blood flowing from a bullet hole, and the climax of the film features a shot of three characters’ faces melting. This movie is also PG.
Caddyshack is a comedy movie about wacky characters around a golf course. A couple women get topless, so this movie is rated R.
The MPAA has been a rather corrupt organization for a very long time. They don’t even bother following their own standards. They also exercise leverage over film content. Many movies live or die by their rating, so “parent’s” groups often lobby them or find their way onto the various boards to exert their will and censor content.
The one that comes to mind for me there is Army of Darkness. Army of Darkness came out in 1992 and is rated R. Why? Its content is similar to a lot of PG-13 movies, including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which came out 3 years earlier. Army of Darkness is appropriate for the same audience as Indiana Jones. It’s rated R because it’s a sequel to Evil Dead.
Saving Private Ryan features some pretty realistic scenes of combat wounds. Not 10 minutes in, we get a shot of a man’s guts hanging out of his torso while he’s calling for his mama. That movie came out in 1998 and is rated R. Showgirls came out in 1995, and is rated NC-17 because it’s a skinemax movie. This isn’t an original thought by any means, but…are those backwards? Why are we more comfortable showing children war than sex?
I mean you’re comparing movies that are 22 years apart and for entirely different demographics. It’s to be expected that the criteria changes based on how cultural norms change.
What stands out to me is that they got more strict as time went on and depending on who the target demographic is.
It’s funny that movies intended for kids had much higher standards than movies intended for adults.
I think MPAA/RIAA censorship it peaked in the early 2000’s and since then those agencies have become increasingly irrelevant.
Raiders of the Lost Ark being PG is a bad (or good depending on your perspective) example, because the sequel (Temple of Doom) was one of the main reasons the PG-13 rating was created.
My point is, the comedy movie that features nudity and consentual sex acts is considered less acceptable for young people than the movie with graphic violence, murder and body horror.
![Can you be nude in your own backyard? [US]](https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/2ee9d311-fdac-40bb-ba50-64c108000248.png){kind=link}
Movie ratings are kinda bullshit anyway.
Airport, one of the movies Airplane! spoofs, features an almost explicit scene of a suicide bombing aboard an airliner in flight. A pregnant woman is injured in the explosion, and a plane load of people spend the entire third act in immediate mortal danger. This movie is rated G.
Ice Age, the Disney (somehow not Pixar) movie whose plot boils down to “Three Men And A Baby, Except Animals” is rated PG for “Mild Peril.”
Raiders of the Lost Ark features explicit scenes of people being shot including blood flowing from a bullet hole, and the climax of the film features a shot of three characters’ faces melting. This movie is also PG.
Caddyshack is a comedy movie about wacky characters around a golf course. A couple women get topless, so this movie is rated R.
The MPAA has been a rather corrupt organization for a very long time. They don’t even bother following their own standards. They also exercise leverage over film content. Many movies live or die by their rating, so “parent’s” groups often lobby them or find their way onto the various boards to exert their will and censor content.
The one that comes to mind for me there is Army of Darkness. Army of Darkness came out in 1992 and is rated R. Why? Its content is similar to a lot of PG-13 movies, including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which came out 3 years earlier. Army of Darkness is appropriate for the same audience as Indiana Jones. It’s rated R because it’s a sequel to Evil Dead.
Saving Private Ryan features some pretty realistic scenes of combat wounds. Not 10 minutes in, we get a shot of a man’s guts hanging out of his torso while he’s calling for his mama. That movie came out in 1998 and is rated R. Showgirls came out in 1995, and is rated NC-17 because it’s a skinemax movie. This isn’t an original thought by any means, but…are those backwards? Why are we more comfortable showing children war than sex?
I mean you’re comparing movies that are 22 years apart and for entirely different demographics. It’s to be expected that the criteria changes based on how cultural norms change.
What stands out to me is that they got more strict as time went on and depending on who the target demographic is.
It’s funny that movies intended for kids had much higher standards than movies intended for adults.
I think MPAA/RIAA censorship it peaked in the early 2000’s and since then those agencies have become increasingly irrelevant.
Raiders of the Lost Ark being PG is a bad (or good depending on your perspective) example, because the sequel (Temple of Doom) was one of the main reasons the PG-13 rating was created.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_film_rating_system#History
My point is, the comedy movie that features nudity and consentual sex acts is considered less acceptable for young people than the movie with graphic violence, murder and body horror.
you’ve gotta keep your comparisons in the same time period when you’re talking about movie ratings/public morals.
Further evidence that the rating system is bullshit.
just because you don’t understand something doesn’t make it bullshit
I understand it just fine, but as implemented it’s useless for the purpose its supposed to serve.
Ice Age isn’t a Disney movie; it was animated by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox.
And Disney owns 20th Century Fox. Granted they didn’t when the movie was released.