Movie ratings - enforced or not?

I believe a parent's authority overrules all. I don't believe that a movie theatre should allow an underage kid to see a movie alone, however if the parent wants to take them that should be allowed.

As to the Passion of Christ, a parent really isn't doing their job if they let such young kids see it.

 

I'm not a huge fan of censorship. But there has to be some level where ratings play a part. I dont believe anything should be censored. Rate it over 18 and let only adults go to see it, sure, but dont decide what adults can or cannot watch. Kids should be sheltered a little from graphic violence, swearing, etc, until they are mature enough to understand what they are seeing. As such parental guidance is a good thing, since parents can decide when their kids are ready. However, you do get the moron parent syndrome, where some parents have no sense at all.

How to solve it? I'm not sure, but there are some benefits, as there are some drawbacks to the current system.

 

Well, in Canada, there is definitely age restrictions, but they vary from province to province. I found this link.
But to be perfectly honest, since my wife and I don't have children, I never pay much attention to the ratings, so I couldn't really say what rating a particular movie is given. Therefore, it would be difficult to say whether there are children seeing a movie that they shouldn't be seeing. Of course, while I may question the rating given to a particular movie, I feel that age restrictions should be enforced.

 

OK, a quick breakdown of the movie ratings in the U.S. with regard to age limits, for those of you who aren't from the U.S. who may be unfamiliar with the ratings system:

G - General - all ages admitted, no restrictions
PG - Parental Guideance - Recommended, but not required
PG-13 - Parental Guidance for under 13 - parental guidance required for children under 13
R - Restricted - Parental Guidance for people under 17
NC-17 - No Children (under 17) - Children under 17 cannot be admitted even with parental approval.

So, in the U.S., accompanying your child to the movies would allow entry of children into all movies, unless it's NC-17. It should be noted that NC-17 is a VERY RARE film rating in the U.S. Surely fewer than 1% of the movies are rated NC-17, and you never see a major motion picture with any type of popularity with such a rating.

As far as when you DON'T have a parent accompanying you, my experience from my teenage years was that the movie theater always let you in to R-rated movies, even if it was obvious that you were under 17. It should be noted that there was no NC-17 rating when I was a teenager all those years ago. However things seem to have become more strict in recent years. My youngest brother is 17 years old, and he states that he has been asked for his driver's license to get into R-rated movies. Who ever thought the day would come that you would get carded at the movies???

 

Here movie ratings exist in cinemas and TV programs. They work fine but I think there is a problem about them:

Some years ago I went to the cinema to watch Blackhawk Down but they said that I'm not old enough for this movie. So I bought a ticket for another movie. But after some months, when it shipped in video-cassettes, I rented it and eventually watched it. I was still underaged for that movie but I didn't find it so much gory as to not watch it. This entails two problems:
1. Since there are restrictions at the cinemas, then why not at the video-stores too? This is very controversial, isn't it?
2. There are many kids like me that a gory movie doesn't look very much gory to them. So why shouldn't they watch a movie? But then, how can the personel at the cinemas know it? It's impossible...
One solution for problem 2 is to remove these restrictions but that would be bad for those with no common sense. I mean, if someone has common sense and knows that he can't bear blood-scenes he wont go to see a movie full of blood-scenes. But there are the others...

So I believe that a more flexible movie-rating sytem should be enforced. I mean that there should be restrictions but not so absolute. Though I don't know how that could be accomplished. Surely, the media can help by better information on the movie.

 

Information is absolutely essential. Especially with young kids, there's a lot of variation in what they're ready for. "Finding Nemo" was an all-audiences movie, but that scene with the shark was pretty intense, and the overall theme (being separated from your parents) can be really scary for a little kid. Then again, when we saw Nemo my son was bothered by the shark scene but one of his classmates was bored. It all depends on the kid.

I saw something in the paper recently, where parents can essentially buy "permission slips" for their kids to get into R-rated movies without escort. The effectiveness of that still relies on proper enforcement, though.

 

Oh dear people!

Let me first say that I agree on the Passion of the Christ. Hardly a film for kids. But I was allowed and everyone I know was allowed to watch horrors / 18's when I was a nipper (although, PotM was not out then I admit!).

Come on. Far too much emphasis is put on wrapping kids in cotton wool nowadays. It's patronising them and more likely to harm their future than hiding them from 'bad things'.

Rallymama, I can only assume your kidding when you say that Finding Nemo could be harmful to kids. Dear o' dear if your not.

I heard of a school over here that put a stop to the traditional Sports Day as it felt that kids who lost would be toop traumatised. It's ridiculous.

Better start putting news on after the watershed! And lets put a stop to computer games with violence in!

Please.

 

I agree with Rallymama. Finding Nemo was a classic example. My son (7 years old at the time)) laughed throughout the entire movie. My nephew (who was 5) screamed hysterically and had to be taken out, and my niece (who was 3) didn't even understand the movie and got bored.

I personally thought the movie should have been rated PG for the scary parts.

 

If I took my kid to watch Finding Nemo (or it's equivalent when junior arrives) and he screamed and cried. I'd tell him sort his ideas out. "Have a bit of backbone you soft bugger! Right! Your coming into Passion then! And we'll get that voice of yours lowered a wee bit as well!"

 

Something new to the parents too, I guess; not ALL kids are bloodthirsty little buggers. IMO, this is just a small matter and does not really require government actions. If you were there, did you note the parents about it...?

 

My general observation has been that there is minimal attention to ratings by theatre personnel here.

For R rated films they make you buy the tickets from a human instead of an automatic ticketing machine - presumably so they can make sure no one who looks to be under 18 can buy a ticket. However, I have never seen anyone who has a ticket turned away by the ticket takers due to being too young to have purchased the tickt in the first place. In other words, you can just have someone else who meets the age requirement buy the ticket and then you have no problem getting in.

I have never seen the theatre try to verify if someone is 13 or 14, even when the kid was obviously younger than that.

Overall, I would say that the system is kind of silly except for possibly being a guide for parents. Even then, a lot of the films that are rated PG13 or AA14 seem to have much more objectionable content than many of the films that receive the R ratings.

 

Passion should really be 15+ no matter parental consent. Should also contain appropriate warnings for other people.

Kids shouldn't see it. Oh well, kids play Quake and make bigger gore themselves.... but still, not all of them. And games should have ratings enforced as well.

I'm not a fan of overly restrictive age restrictions. They need to be reasonable or people will grow to ignore them altogether. And should it come true, they could actually let their kids see something they shouldn't - that is, if the movie actually happens actually to deserve the restrictive rating. And ratings need to be same for all. Not like some movies are overly restricted and some are let slip.

In this country, I've seen people play in movies they shouldn't be allowed to see...

 

It all depends on the theatre and the person working. Last summer, my seventeen year old brother and I went to go see Open Range, a rated "R" western. My brother was denied, even though he was seventeen and I was with him. It's all about the parents. Coincidentally enough we saw Finding Nemo instead.

I work with kids and no child is alike. Some five year olds may be ready for a movie like the Passion whereas some seven year olds would not. The best authority on if a child is ready or not is the parents. Apparently some parents misjudged, but a few bad apples should not ruin it for the whole bunch. There are some highly intelligent young kids out there, just as there are some highly backwards young kids too.

I still think the Scream movies are more gory than the Passion. We all know the real reason it received a bad rap.

Actually my complaint is tv. I hardly ever watch it, but the other Friday night I surfed the channels at my parent's house. At ten (kids don't have school on Saturday, you're darn right they stay up) on AMC (that's American Movie Classics) some teen thriller came on. It had these frat boys and girls drunk on an island playing some kind of treasure hunt game. And there was this walking islander totem-like statue that was going around repeatedly clubbing them to death and spattering blood all over the place and on the faces of petrified bystanders. It was revolting. Far far worse than anything I've ever seen on the big screen.

A) I would expect trash like that to be on HBO, where parents have to order the channel.

B) I certainly wouldn't expect trash like that on American Movie Classics at 10:00 on a Friday night.

That to me raises much more concern than rated "R" movies where at least young kids have to be accompanied by a parent, because at least movies give a chance for parental consent.

Sidenote: I never wanted to see rated R movies when I was young. I was content with PG-13. Much thanks to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

 

Big B -- interesting point. I wonder how many of the kids that saw Passion wanted to see it, or were just being dragged along by their parents.

I never saw the movie, nor had any inclination to see it. I'm not into violence, gore or torture per se and from reviews of friends that have seen it, that's what it amounted to be.

As far as prohibiting children from seeing movies like that, regardless of parental consent -- I'm all for it. Normally, I side with the preservation of parent's rights, but in cases of such blatant visual violence as this, I think the movie industry needs to step in and step up. The parents, however, can always buy the thing on DVD and there's nothing anyone can do about that -- it's their decision. But at least an attempt can be made at the cinemas.