To Be PG Or Not To Be PG-13
© Enoch Allen
Animated pictures these days are either rated G or PG. Rarely are they PG-13, and even rarer do you see an R rating awarded to an animated picture. (Though, “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” got the R rating--no surprise there.) Recently, though, we’ve seen an abundance of animated pictures receive the PG rating, which is mildly shocking. No, it is not an indicator of maturity in the animation industry--rather an indicator that their subject matter is getting more and more intense. The MPAA has young viewers in mind and slapping on a PG rating just informs the parents that the comic mischief or small bits of violence featured in the film might exact some influence over their child’s behavior . . . thereof.
So, I’m a paragraph into this article, and yet I haven’t identified a clean theme. Maybe I’ve run out of steam after 20 or so articles. NOT.
This article’s about the inane ratings that the MPAA gives animated movies in particular, but this topic can appeal to movies as well. For a PG rating--or, to earn a PG rating, a movie must have no more than five “s**t” words, and a dozen or two mild profanities (the usual “hell, damn and ass”). For a PG-13 rating, such a film must not have more than thirty or so “s**t” words, two “F” words, and three dozen mild profanities (although, the defining boundaries as to what constitutes an R picture and a PG-13 are getting blurred; more gratuitous violence can be allowed in PG-13 pics, in addition to three “F“ words and more profanities than stipulated). Rating “The Powerpuff Girls” and “Lilo & Stitch” PG just shows the shallow-yet-obtuse criteria that these pictures have to meet to rile the feathers of the board, and not get the coveted “G” rating. Both of which could have passed for G movies as recent as ten years ago. What can’t be explained is a PG-13 rating for “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring”, which features multiple beheadings, impalements, and dismemberments. True, it does not feature scenes of sexuality (or even sensuality, for that matter) or language. But the fiercely intense violence of the battle scenes would not have been labeled suitable for general audiences ten years ago, when “Last of the Mohicans” featured the same thing.
But, on the same token “Batman: Mask of the Phantasm”, which by all rights should’ve gotten a PG-13 (and even more puzzling, it was released in the comparatively conservative year of 1993), serves as a sterling example of the instability, or the integrity, of the MPAA ratings. I believe that, if an animated picture receives a rather mature rating, they should earn it, by displaying something really offensive.
Go To Page: 1 2
