Whatever Happened to PG-13 Movies?

I came across a very good video on YouTube today about the death of the PG-13 rating, and I agree with the video just look at the movies in the last 20 years.

In this episode I take an exhaustive look at just how watered down PG-13 has become and why it is ruining movies.

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So what do you guys think share your opinion, and remember keep it PG-13.

More like the death of R-rated movies; in related news, I rarely ever go to the cinema these days.

Wonder if there'll be blowback one of these days after some indie R-rated flick earns a billion bucks.

Same thing that happened to RPGs - least common denominator.

Honestly I think these ratings are being stretched to their extreme limits. I can't believe how foul, crude, lewd, and vulgar most of these PG-13 movies are, and even many PG ones. It's to the point where I virtually stopped watching any of them. I won't want my children to see them.

The industry has forgotten it's entirely possible to make wholesome movies that everyone will appreciate without resorting to offensive jokes, gratuitous shock value, and crude content all over the place.

Humanity has risen! said:

Honestly I think these ratings are being stretched to their extreme limits. I can't believe how foul, crude, lewd, and vulgar most of these PG-13 movies are, and even many PG ones. It's to the point where I virtually stopped watching any of them. I won't want my children to see them.

The industry has forgotten it's entirely possible to make wholesome movies that everyone will appreciate without resorting to offensive jokes, gratuitous shock value, and crude content all over the place.

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What annoys me is that they flash some boob and it's PG-13, but they can have just about any sort of twisted messed up content and theme without getting it.

ManWhoJaped said:

What annoys me is that they flash some boob and it's PG-13, but they can have just about any sort of twisted messed up content and theme without getting it.

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I totally agree - though I think it makes sense in the context of America ... we are militarized to the point where cops/troops in full armor with guns up in front of an unarmed civilian with hands up is a 'meh' occurrence, yet everyone knows what you are talking about when you mention that a nipple was shown for less than a second during an elaborate super bowl performance ... and that only one of those things is cause for changes to occur.

There was a video study of the history of censorship in film through the years ... worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L8cS2GcoWg

I think it's pretty obvious that if you don't put strict limits, people are just going to do whatever they want to generate more shock value and look more "edgy", so the censorship boards served a very important purpose.

Also it is perfectly logical not wanting to expose children to nakedness or other such indecent content. It is about how the behavior can be imitated and what subversive power it has. A child is not going to start to take a gun and go on a rampage because he sees a movie where some cowboys kill one another, however seeing sexually explicit content will rob him of his innocence and introduce troubling thoughts he is not mentally equipped to handle at such a young age, and can be directly applied to his situation.

Also it is perfectly logical not wanting to expose children to nakedness or other such indecent content. It is about how the behavior can be imitated and what subversive power it has. A child is not going to start to take a gun and go on a rampage because he sees a movie where some cowboys kill one another, however seeing sexually explicit content will rob him of his innocence and introduce troubling thoughts he is not mentally equipped to handle at such a young age, and can be directly applied to his situation.

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What a bunch of fearmongering bullshit.

Let me guess, you're religious?

Humanity has risen! said:

It is about how the behavior can be imitated and what subversive power it has. A child is not going to start to take a gun and go on a rampage because he sees a movie where some cowboys kill one another, however seeing sexually explicit content will rob him of his innocence and introduce troubling thoughts he is not mentally equipped to handle at such a young age, and can be directly applied to his situation.

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Gun violence is directly applicable to many children's situations. Kids in America shoot people and get shot fairly often.

I don't think media imagery has a direct causative effect on behavior, but cultural tone does. So the fear of sexuality combined with tolerance of violence has led us, as a country, to a strange and ugly place.

For example, here's a recent story from my home. My coworker's brother had supervised both the killer and his victim in an after-school mentoring program since the two boys were young.

DArtagnan said:

What a bunch of fearmongering bullshit.

Let me guess, you're religious?

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I was assuming (hoping) what he said was ironic?

Unfortunately as I said, American culture shows that many, many people believe exactly as he says.

txa1265 said:

I was assuming (hoping) what he said was ironic?

Unfortunately as I said, American culture shows that many, many people believe exactly as he says.

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It sounded pretty serious to me.

Of course, people are welcome to believe in whatever they wish - but when they transfer fear of nature and some of the best parts of reality to children (intimacy, love and pure physical pleasure), it makes for a very confusing world for the innocent who don't know any better than to listen to their destructively ignorant parents, while they're left with completely natural urges that could have been shown as part of something wonderful to come, instead of something shameful with nothing but stupidity to back up that misconception.

RedSocialKnight said:

Gun violence is directly applicable to many children's situations. Kids in America shoot people and get shot fairly often.

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Not really. That is just some fantasy the media likes to portray so they can take guns away and thereby bring about marxist paradise. Shootings from legal guns are overwhelmingly criminals shot while trying to rob someone.

In Switzerland there's least crime of all, and every single adult male is REQUIRED to own an assault rifle. Also the most direct democracy. When the people can simply show up at your steps with an automatic rifle you take their wishes very seriously - which is what all this nonsense is really about.

ManWhoJaped said:

That is just some fantasy the media likes to portray so they can take guns away and thereby bring about marxist paradise.

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Heh.

Yes, unrealistic fantasies certainly can have a destructive effect -- especially on the marxist, gun-thieving media.

Why, I found Anderson Cooper and Diane Sawyer rattling the padlock on my rifle cabinet just the other night.

DArtagnan said:

It sounded pretty serious to me.

Of course, people are welcome to believe in whatever they wish - but when they transfer fear of nature and some of the best parts of reality to children (intimacy, love and pure physical pleasure), it makes for a very confusing world for the innocent who don't know any better than to listen to their destructively ignorant parents.

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Denying nature is not the same as being crass and subhuman just because at every turn, everyone swearing constantly and doing drugs. Basically just a least common denominator shit-culture that is incredibly pathetic. BBC used to be great 20 years ago, now it is simply cesspool of disgusting amorality and political propaganda - and worse of all, it's simply utter crap.

Not too long ago "dick" and a couple other words became common on US tv, and then not surprisingly it's become much more braindead since then. I don't seek to eliminate them but previously it was contained so if you want to watch tv with kids that isn't some teletubbies crap you didn't have to constantly worry.

Plus there is a big push to include all kinds of gender, drug, and race issues that are a bit too adult for kids to be looking at (not to mention often propaganda oriented).

I took some of my siblings family to see transformers. Some mild violence and cool cartoon stuff is what I expected to see. Instead I got some drug addled crap and all kinds of retardation they really didn't need to be seeing.

In europe the belief seems to run that americans are big prude but ironically I think what we actually want is some real content and culture and not just a bunch of idiots flinging poo at the screen. I think R movie stuff is good too and I don't care about nudity much, but a lot of stuff that should have remained outside children's programming has crept in, and a lot of stuff on prime time tv is a lot more inappropriate for children than mere nudity would be. When you are trying to get kids to behave, language especially is something you don't want to see on tv.

txa1265 said:

I was assuming (hoping) what he said was ironic?

Unfortunately as I said, American culture shows that many, many people believe exactly as he says.

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It's pretty sad to be fighting for the right to sexualize everything. I get annoyed that they jam in a romance to every single movie as it is, I just can't relate to people who think this nonsense is "culture" though like I said I would not mind if they showed more nudity in general that's not the same as everything being about sex, which is already way too much the case.

ManWhoJaped said:

It's pretty sad to be fighting for the right to sexualize everything. I get annoyed that they jam in a romance to every single movie as it is, I just can't relate to people who think this nonsense is "culture" though like I said I would not mind if they showed more nudity in general that's not the same as everything being about sex, which is already way too much the case.

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I am not "fighting for the right to sexualize everything" ... I think people should make their own value judgments.

HOWEVER ...

What I AM saying is that in our culture, you can show someone getting gunned down, brains splattered, guts falling out, limbs realistically flying off, and other horrific levels of violence .. and worse yet, show 'heroes' solving all problems with guns (the American way, right?), mowing down rows of 'bad guys' ... and so on.

THIS IS ALL CONSIDERED APPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN.

But a dance routine where a 'nip slip' might have been seen by 1% of the public at a time well past 'prime time' required a congressional subcommittee.

If you cannot see the bizarre-ness and warped nature of this ... I cannot help you.

Sex and violence should *at least* have parity of consideration.

That censorship video I shared had a couple of good examples.

txa1265 said:

I am not "fighting for the right to sexualize everything" … I think people should make their own value judgments.

HOWEVER …

What I AM saying is that in our culture, you can show someone getting gunned down, brains splattered, guts falling out, limbs realistically flying off, and other horrific levels of violence .. and worse yet, show 'heroes' solving all problems with guns (the American way, right?), mowing down rows of 'bad guys' … and so on.

THIS IS ALL CONSIDERED APPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN.

But a dance routine where a 'nip slip' might have been seen by 1% of the public at a time well past 'prime time' required a congressional subcommittee.

If you cannot see the bizarre-ness and warped nature of this … I cannot help you.

Sex and violence should *at least* have parity of consideration.

That censorship video I shared had a couple of good examples.

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It's a double standard, and it's very Jihadist. Fundamentalist Americans and Fundamentalist Middle Eastern Muslims are two sides of the same twisted coin...

As I said, sex and violence don't have the same subversive, visceral power over the minds of impressionable children. Children always play cops and bandits or other mindless activities which mimic the type of violence you would see in an action movie. However, sexual content or innuendo will start giving him sexual notions that can warp his being and that he certainly didn't need to know, or incite him to develop an interest in pornography. I do agree that if there is to be violence it should be off screen or abstracted as much as possible.

But ManWhoJaped is actually articulating my main point of contention. I want to raise my two young children in a wholesome manner with good values, and while the TV, movies, and other such media respect the ratings to the letter, in other respects their content is increasingly rude and irreverent. While I know I won't always be able to control their own choices and while I don't intend to raise them without the means to cope with the world surrounding them, what it effectively it means that someone like me is starting to have no options at all for culturally significant media to show my children that is imbued with good values.

Where I live it is even worse, as a lot of movies or TV shows rated PG-13 are simply rated G. This means that a lot of "G-rated" TV shows will clearly cross the line and will be filled with sexual references or even a woman panting off screen. I don't think I am wrong for wanting to enjoy a good time with my children without us having to stare at a film full of disrespectful or rude characters, or inappropriate adult themes or language.

There are so many great movies out there I don't see how any of these ratings mean much of anything. Sure, sure I don't mind the odd "Block Buster" movie as industry calls them.

In all honesty most of these movies are designed to begin so Monday morning they can say "record breaking box office". Though they only release a monetary value, not a head count to speck loudly on how great the movie is.

This being said head cut or the amount of money a movie makes has really nothing to do with how great it is. Take Rob Zombie in the beginning did most likely two of the best slasher/horror movies ever made with no budget or big movie house standing behind him. His last two movies you couldn't pay me two watch them but that is big business.

One of the few directors that seem to stand up and say I am going to make whatever I want and if you don't like oh well is Mr. Tarantino. There is no lack of sales for his movies. Maybe the people making them need to stand up for what they believe in, instead of the paycheck.

As for anyone complaining about to much this or to much that, why can't they make this or that. No one is forcing you to see anything and you should stay of other peoples business.

Top movies I have seen in the last few months in no order

Long way down, War story, The faults in our Stars, Child of God, Gimme Shelter, Gods pocket,The book thief, Frank…I sure I am missing some.