A complaint I don't get

[suarezguy]

The idea that the MPAA is unfair in its rating of content, or specifically that it is indifferent to violence including intense graphic violence, or thinks that's fine, harmless, for kids while it is extremely restrictive about profanity and sex/nudity.

I think actually mild to light-moderate violence will get PG, moderate to kind-of-a-lot get PG-13 and definitely a lot or more intense R. The same goes for profanity. Maybe it is more restrictive with sex/nudity but that seems harder to be more objective about and also probably to have in only mild or moderate forms-but sometimes that does occur and when it does they do get lower ratings.

I don't see how the reaction to and rating of violence is either mild or milder than to other controversial content.

 

[StarCruiser]

"The use of violence, in the apprehension of the Blues Brothers, has been approved..."

I have no idea what the MPAA is thinking half of the time anyway. Trying to make sense of it is pointless.

 

[bigdaddy]

Movie could be full of fucking blood and fucking violence. PG13.
A movie, like fucking Moon, is rated fucking R for saying fuck 3+ times.

So yeah the MPAA is fucking stupid.

 

[Masiral]

The Hunger Games, a movie that features teenagers murdering each other, gets PG-13. Bully, a documentary about bullying that features teenagers swearing at each other, gets R. The MPAA is pretty much bullshit at this point.

 

[bigdaddy]

Any violent movie with limited visible blood is assured to get a PG-13, even if millions die.

Which is the issue.

I could kill 5 billion people in a movie in the most violent ways possible making it seem to mentally ill people that blood isn't real and death doesn't matter. PG13

Fuck - Fuck - Fuck
Rated R no matter what!

 

[AlanC9]

My favorite was Eighth Grade getting a rating which meant that actual eighth graders couldn't see it without their parents

 

[Redfern]

As I noted in another thread, "The King's Speech", pretty much the epidemy of a British "sitting room drama" with the most "violent" element being the distant echo of bombs exploding (no visual depictions) as the King is raced to the location where he makes his famous wartime speech was slapped with an "R" rating. Why? Because his therapist prompted him to say some "colorful metaphors" to see what kind of impediment he might be experiencing.

 

[Kor]

There was some academic article a few years ago demonstrating that PG-13 movies have "more violence" than they used to. Some media outlets even took it and ran with it. I'm too lazy to go look for it again, but I remember that on closer examination, their methodology counted the incidents of violent acts, but did not qualitatively consider how graphic they were. So by that metric, you do indeed have super-powered characters brutally whomping on each other and destroying property for two hours, but there's no spilled blood and guts or details of severed appendages or other human suffering, so it doesn't get an R rating. In a few European countries, The Dark Knight received the most restrictive rating possible. In the US, it got the MPAA PG-13. For comparison, Saving Mr. Banks also got the PG-13 a few years later. It was a talky dramatic feature that had a couple of mild swear words and some family drama such as alcoholism and attempted suicide in a lake.

Kor

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I think most people who bring up the issue of the MPAA being lighter on violence than sex are arguing it is too puritanical about sex. It is pretty ridiculous that a movie about people killing each other is considered more appropriate for children than a single nipple sighting.

 

[Teelie]

If a child sees a nipple they are corrupted for life.

 

[suarezguy]

Movie could be full of fucking blood and fucking violence. PG13.

What films do you think are full of blood but got rated PG-13? The only ones that come to mind to me are The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

 

[bigdaddy]

What films do you think are full of blood but got rated PG-13? The only ones that come to mind to me are The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Really? No one agrees with you here and you want a list of movies?
Any made in the last 20 years isn't good enough?

The Lord of the Rings
The Dark Knight
The Bourne Series
As was said The Hunger Games
The Bond films
Missions Impossibles

The one that really stands out to me is Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The two of them kill about 50,000 people in the movie. PG13.

 

[Kor]

Really? No one agrees with you here and you want a list of movies?
Any made in the last 20 years isn't good enough?

The Lord of the Rings
The Dark Knight
The Bourne Series
As was said The Hunger Games
The Bond films
Missions Impossibles

The one that really stands out to me is Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The two of them kill about 50,000 people in the movie. PG13.

I've still never seen Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but I don't recall those other movies being "full of blood." They keep the level of graphic detail just under what would be shown in an R-rated movie, even though there's a high amount of violent and brutal actions happening, definitely greater in quantity than in similar movies a few decades ago.

Arguably it trivializes violence and makes it appear less serious, to have so much of it going on in a stylized manner without realistic injury, such as if James Bond kills twenty people with a gun and the movie just shows quick, jittery cuts of them falling out of camera view. Or if thousandss of Orcs and elves are beating each other with swords and axes on a huge battlefield and only one gets dismembered but it's a fake-looking fantasy creature that nobody liked.

On the other hand, a bit of toplessness here and there would have gotten a PG in the seventies. And "All the President's Men" dropped the F-bomb about twenty-seven times and got a PG, though that was on appeal. So more violence is getting by (as long as it's not too graphic), whereas they're more strict on the other content.

Kor

 

[Non Sync]

Check out the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006) which looks at the whole rating process by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). It exposes who the ratings board is and that their identity is kept secret to avoid undo pressure from the studios, although the studios know who they are. It also covers appeals in which other film's ratings/content cannot be referenced. You could remake a move shot for shot and end up with a different rating. (Apparently the MPAA has changed that now, probably due to this film.)

 

[captainkirk]

I think most people who bring up the issue of the MPAA being lighter on violence than sex are arguing it is too puritanical about sex. It is pretty ridiculous that a movie about people killing each other is considered more appropriate for children than a single nipple sighting.

Here's a simple way to think about it. How many of us have at some point in our lives been naked? Now how many of us have committed murder? For whatever reason, the one thing we've all done is considered less acceptable than the thing that (hopefully) no one on this forum has done.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Of course. The way our bodies naturally function is taboo and sinful. That’s why even breastfeeding your child in public is a sinful act.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

The world's so crazy right now I don't think there's enough common sense, integrity and decency for a subjective system to work anyway. At least now, you know a "fuck" gets you PG-13, two gets you an R. A boob will likely get you a PG-13 these days, anything more than a flash probably an R. Is it right or fair? Probably not, but at least it's somewhat consistent and predictable.

 

[Masiral]

The world's so crazy right now I don't think there's enough common sense, integrity and decency for a subjective system to work anyway. At least now, you know a "fuck" gets you PG-13, two gets you an R. A boob will likely get you a PG-13 these days, anything more than a flash probably an R. Is it right or fair? Probably not, but at least it's somewhat consistent and predictable.

Except Knives Out has two "fucks" and still has a PG-13 rating. Even the consistent and predictable rules aren't consistent and predictable anymore.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

^ This is why this country going down the shitter I tell you!

 

[bigdaddy]

Except Knives Out has two "fucks" and still has a PG-13 rating. Even the consistent and predictable rules aren't consistent and predictable anymore.

You are allowed to say fuck twice. You say it 3-4 times like in Moon and boom it's rated R for no fucking reason.