Movie ratings systems

Don't pay any attention to them. Never have.

In every country that I have lived that I remember the ratings system was different.

In Brazil, for example, the ratings are based on age.

e.g. "13", as in years old.

The ratings aren't really enforced. And the R rated movies usually end up with the 13.

I was raised a Roman Catholic during the 1950s when the Legion of Decency held sway and people took the annual oath, standing up in church, swearing to not see Condemned movies (objectionable for all) and to only see movies within the appropriate category. The system wasn't far removed from the current rating system but was presented in a more ominous style, with light cast from the fires of hell.

During the 1960s, liberal Catholics were intellectually liberal as well and over turned the system with logic. I attended a lecture on film given by a priest and it changed my life. He talked, as intellectual Catholics did then, about "Christ figures." The most prominent Christ figure among current movie characters today is the obvious Gandalf. At that time, he suggested Julie Christie's Darling and Michael Caine's Alfie. The priest also suggested that the comedies starringDoris Day and Rock Hudson were more obscene than what passed for sexy movies at that time because the Hudson-Day films were "obviously meant to titillate."

Anyway, ever since I evaluated movies by theme and that makes more sense. I think many PG-13 movies are inappropriate for early adolescents but have had no problems showing my kids many R rated movies. There is often more feminine nudity in PG-13s (notice how little male nudity there is in film) and more violence.

On the other hand, film can be valuable to teach kids about the Holocaust and WWII which I did with my kids. I should note that my kids were raised in an intellectual setting and that I read aloud to them until they were 12 and preferred strictly private reading. I think mothers who condemn all R movies do their kids an intellectual disservice.

In England:

U - shirt for Universal..and self explanitary
PG - parentalguidance
12a - new part this is, means a child of under 12 can watch this film as long as they have a guardian with them
12 - twelve or over
15 - fifteen or over
18 - eighteen or over

These ratings are generally only acknowledged by cinemas in my experience. The new 12a here seems a watse of time but as it is irrelevant to me, i am not bothered by it. I dont think people take much notice of film certificates unless there is a large gap between the age of the viewer and the recommended viewing age. Saying that, I often wondered what the people who classify some films have been drinking!
I cant see that the ratings could ever be truly 'enforced' though. As people can buy and rent the films and others not young enough to watch them have easy acess.

Vroonika,
A local theatre kicks kids out of R rated movies if they are not with a parent or guardian. I boycott that theatre for that reason which is ultimately hollow as it is a mass market, first run house and I don't see a lot of mass market films.

You are right about video rentals although our local video shop keeps records about which parents allow their kids to rent R films and acts accordingly.

In Mexico:


AA - Children films, specially small children films. Dubbed in most theaters. "Finding Nemo"
A - Films for everyone. Sometimes dubbed. "Tuck Everlasting".
B - Adolescents and adults, but children of all ages can get in anyway. "Lord Of The Rings".
B15 - Adolescents and adults. Reccomended for people over 15. But children of all ages can get in. "21 Grams"
C - Adults only (over 18, check in at the entrance if you look younger). "Irreversible".
D- Porno movies. Can be shown only in few theaters and must be in the upper rack at video rental stores.

B15 is a recent creation, because of the brawl formed by "Y tu Mamá También", which was originally "C" and upgraded to "B15"

And when I was a child, they were very strict, and the ratings seems made by a mean priest. "Midnight Cowboy" and "Born to Lose" were D!

Yes, Midnight Cowboy was originally an "X" when it won the oscar for best picture. Now it would be at most an "R". "X" is no longer part of the mainstream motion picture rating system in the USA and now is used only to describe porn movies.

As an aside I've found that most translations of movies (both dubbed and subtitled) usually feature much less vulgarity.

Especially the subtitled. Expletives have a different weight when written so I've found that in many nations the translation will often substitute a more generic exclamation where there was an expletive.

To give an example in English the "F--- you"s would become "screw you"s.

we have
G (kids and such)
PGR (kids ok but parents oughta have a think about it and a chat after - hmmmm)
M - (mature audiences - but they won't kick kids out)
R (Nobody under 18)

Call me a Utahan (although i'm from SF), but they have edited movie stores everywhere out here. And they rent edited movies. So although some artists have a problem with that, the vast mainstream buy them up with fury. There are just too many good movies that I can't show my kids because they have too much garbage in them.

mrcolj - Are the edited films labeled as such? I think that it is good idea for parents with kids to have edited films available. Adults should have the unedited versions if that is what they want to see.

Yeah, they're labeled as edited. There are whole video stores that only sell edited videos and DVDs.

Cleanflicks
http://www.cleanflicks.com/
is by far the largest.

I use them since I'm a schoolteacher. Even the PG ones get edited, so you don't have to worry about movies a la Titanic sneaking up on you.

I don't go to the movies much now, but I do have a lot of VHS tapes and DVDs. When I did go, I would sometimes see little kids in the theatre with me. Parents often took them in to "R" movies. I would cringe when I realized what these kids were seeing....the gratuitous sex and violence.

As a kid who was severely traumatized by a movie that I saw when I was twelve, I feel very strongly about children not being exposed to stuff that they are not mature enough to see.

As a schoolteacher I am constantly shocked by how much more these kids know than I did at their age; and by how obvious the correlation is between what they know about sex and their grades and happiness. It's obvious even in high school, and realistically probably even in college.

I have coined an expression for this, "sophistication without maturity". I think that is a dangerous combination!