Age ratings

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(moved from Random Discussion because I thought it would be more appropriate here)

I don't know if it's just me, but I've noticed that there seems to be a change in the way that certain movies, shows or video games are rated these days.

These films were all rated U/G (at least in UK, US, etc.):

-Watership Down: A film involving the perilous journey of a band of rabbits finding a new home. Along the way, they meet predators, humans and their weaponry, and rival rabbits. It wasn't afraid to skimp on the blood and violence featured in the original book.

-Animal Farm: A film based on an allegorical novel about Stalin's reign over the Soviet Union. This was originally meant to be an adult animated film btw.

-Hunchback of Notre Dame: This movie touched upon themes such as lust, genocide, damnation, and aspects of religion. It also managed to make the villain (Frollo) even more vile than in the book (definitely the most evil/best Disney villain).

-Tarzan: Literally features leopards, humans and gorillas beating the ever-lasting sh it out of each other without skimping over the blood, a shadow of a body hanging from a tree, etc.

-All Dogs Go To Heaven: had alcohol, murder, smoking, death, and a scene where the main character dreams about Hell.

(I love all these films btw)

What's PG now?

...Frozen.... Inside Out....

Why the sudden change? Does PG mean anything anymore? How is Frozen the same age rating as Raiders of the Lost Ark? How come films that feature a nipple get higher age ratings than those that feature extreme violence? We all know what the naked human body looks like, since we are all humans, and have seen our own naked bodies before, and will most likely see someone else's. So why is this so upsetting to us?

I would have no problem showing any of those movies to a young kid so I don't know what you want.

I used to watch American Pie when I was younger (think ~ 8 to 9)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't get it either. Who Framed Roger Rabbit was rated PG, and it has a lot of violence that's mostly of the classic cartoony style, but also shows the aftermath of a man who was killed by a piano dropped on his head, although there's no blood or brain matter shown, and then later another man get shot in the back several times (but still no blood) while Eddie threatens to choke him to death, Eddie drinks a lot of booze to cope with the loss of his brother, although he gives it up later, there are several swears that are mostly "mild", but also including one use each of son of a b**ch and b*****d, one where Eddie almost uses a word for testicles but gets something dropped on his head, and then he kicks a weasel... between his legs. don't even get me started on Jessica. Pattycake! Pattycake! PATTYCAKE! Nice booby trap. And, of course, Judge Doom revealing his true Toon self was pretty intense and scary.

Also the leader of the weasel gang's name was actually Smart Ass. It was shown in the closing credits. Of course, when they had the toys out he was called Smart Guy instead.


But it's one of my all time favorite movies so whatever. I think these days they use a PG-rating for anything that may even be even remotely offensive, even if it's only a small amount of people. I mean, in Frozen Krystoff tells Ana that all men pick their noses and eat it, (it's later said in the closing credits that Krystoff's opinion does not reflect those of the movie's creators) and Olaf gets decapitated and impaled by icicles but it doesn't really hurt him since he's a snowman. Also when something *is* rated G, people think no one except small children will want to watch it.

Or that's what the writers tend to think, anyway. I've seen quite a few live-action movies during my life where they obviously tried to avoid the dreaded G-rating by having a lot of swearing and it was stupid and just ironically made it less mature.

The higher rating, the better!! !

#nc17rules

Maybe it’s because I’m from Europe, but I really don’t understand the American rating system anyway.
For example, my favorite TV show is “Hannibal”. It’s extremely brutal and gory and in my country you have to be an adult (18+) to legally buy it. (Admittedly, one could argue that this might be a bit too harsh since many of those deaths are highly stylized and don’t always look very realistic, but I’d say common sense would still say that this show should be at least 16+.)

On NBC however, the show was rated as 13+. It could have been one of the most violent shows one could imagine, but the important thing was that it didn’t show any “offensive” nudity. They even blurred the nipples in renaissance paintings because apparently nipples are more disturbing for a young mind than a body being transformed into a human cello (and someone playing on it).

There was an episode in which the killer transformed his victims into blood angels. The crime scene was filmed from behind, so you could see everything from where the skin had been ripped from the back. The only complaint that NBC had was that they were naked and that you could see their butt cracks. To hide those evil butt cracks, the production team had to paint them with more blood. Then, everything was fine again.

Standards haven't really gotten stricter - rather, they've gotten more consistent over time. Watership Down really shouldn't have been a U, something the BBFC admits today.

Also, when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, there was no PG-13 rating. It was actually as a result of both that film and Gremlins that the PG-13 rating was created - as such, the PG rating got stricter.

I can understand a (very mild) PG for Frozen, for the mild threat and scary scenes present. Inside Out, on the other hand, should have definitely been rated G in America, and was rated U by the BBFC.

I know Germany is a bit more strict about what kinds of violence etc. it allows.

American film boards don't really have any sort of standards, so there's really no explanation why one movie can get away with a different rating than another, even if they have the same content.

There was a really interesting documentary about it on Netflix a while back, and my favorite part was where Matt Stone and Trey Parker (South Park creators) were talking about how they added the most disgusting puppet sex scenes they could think of to Team America World Police, knowing full well that they would have to be cut, but that it would cause the censors to overlook a lot of other risque bits of the movie which all paled in comparison

I think it was this one: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493459/