What makes rated r

Both of these movies are rated PG, yet the licensed toys are marketed at much younger children. Similar examples are seemingly endless. Movie ratings have been around since the early s. Legislators went a step further, introducing laws to prevent the spread of what many at the time identified as objectionable.

Hollywood, seeing the writing on the wall, decided to clean up their reputation by bringing in a man named Will Hays to bring morality to the movies. The code, while self-imposed, was approved by the Federal Trade Commission.

The PCA was established in , due to difficulty in enforcing the Hays Code and required all films to be submitted to receive a certificate of approval. Almost all films abided by the system, despite the PCA's reputation for unyielding and tough enforcement of the Hays Code. As culture began to change in the s, the PCA became more difficult to enforce.

Films were granted exceptions and rules were bent or ignored. In , Jack Valenti deemed the Hays Code was out of date and began its revision. Two years later, the modern film rating was born and hasn't changed much since then. The modern system has seen just four significant changes in the past 44 years; the original M rating was changed to GP then PG , the PG rating was added, X was changed to NC, and descriptor text has been added to highlight content.

There is no legal status afforded to the ratings; but, as with the Hays Code before them, the MPAA ratings serve as protection to theater owners so they have defense against showing objectionable material to minors. Some people think the rating board is a government agency, but it's not. This is a huge problem, according to Kirby Dick , writer and director of the blistering and unrated documentary " This Film Is Not Yet Rated ," a film that explores how the ratings system works.

If you control the rating system, you have the control that can give your films less restrictive ratings and the opportunity to give more restrictive ratings to your competitors. Their full-time job is to watch movies and assign ratings. After a film has been reviewed by raters, it is assigned a rating. A rating may also carry a short bit of unhelpful and vague descriptive text, like "thematic elements" or "language," hinting at why the movie received its rating. There are few hard and fast rules, but mostly guidelines.

In general terms, a movie can include a single f-word, as long as it is not sexual in context, and retain a PG rating. However, if the use is sexual or there is more than one instance, the rating becomes an R. Also, a little nudity is allowed in a PG, as long as it's not sexual - then it becomes an R. Further, if there is any reference to drugs or depictions of drug use or even a couple frames of drug paraphernalia, it is automatically at least a PG Beyond that, MPAA guidelines seem a little nebulous.

While these are the rules most often followed, there are always exceptions. Volumes could be written about perceived inconsistencies, but, it might be argued that there are so few choices for ratings G, PG, PG, R, etc. More than brief nudity will also necessitate the MPAA to use this rating. There may also be violence, language, and sexual situations. R — Quite simple, restricted.

The MPAA states the rules for r rated movies are that anyone under the age of 17 will require an accompanying parent or adult guardian in order to gain admittance to the film. Taken from the MPAA website , the R means the film may include adult themes, adult activity, hard language, sexually-oriented nudity, intense of persistent violence, drug abuse, or other such adult-oriented activities.

The rules for R-rated movies are put in place so that parents can make the right decisions when it comes to what their children are watching. At almost all theaters, parents will need to accompany any minors under the age of This means an adult will need to:. They will need to accompany them and watch the movie in its entirety.

The MPAA will suggest that parents take a look at the rating for a particular movie in order to help them understand the type of content that may be involved in the picture.

First, the MPAA suggests that you should rarely basically, never take young children to restricted films. In terms of an extended film rating, FilmRatings. For example, Magic Mike contains pervasive sexual content, brief graphic nudity, language, and some drug use. For the movie Savages, there is strong brutal and grisly violence, some graphic sexuality, nudity, drug use, and language throughout.

That changed in when Hays hired Joseph I. Breen, a lobbyist with deep ties to the Catholic Church, to head the new Production Code Administration. Going forward, every film had to be reviewed and rated to be released. Breen and his team took to their work with zest. For example, "Casablanca" had its famous ending scene altered to tone down the sexual tension between Humphrey Bogart's and Ingrid Bergman's characters. In the s, a handful of filmmakers circumvented Hollywood censors by releasing their films independently of the studio system.

Most notable was "The Outlaw," a film starring Jane Russell that gave ample screen time to her famous bosom. After battling censors for five years, director Howard Hughes finally persuaded United Artists to release the film, which was a box office smash. Breen tightened the code's restrictions in , but its days were numbered. Hollywood continued to abide by the Motion Picture Production Code into the early s. But as the old studio system crumbled and cultural tastes changed, Hollywood realized that it needed a new way to rate films.

Initially, the system had four grades: G general audiences , M mature , R restricted , and X explicit. However, the MPAA never trademarked the X rating, and what was intended for legitimate films soon was co-opted by the pornography industry, which outdid itself to advertise films rated with a single, double, or even triple X. Talk about the movie. Talk about the positive content that you want to give as examples to your kids.

Talk about the negative content and how it conflicts with what your family believes or values. Watch the content first. Watching the movie before your child allows you to see firsthand what content is included and helps you develop a plan for how to talk about it with your child. Be open. Check out viewer reviews. Did you find this article useful?

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