The Curse of PG-13

We have a 12-year old son, and it’s become clear to us over the past few months that the PG-13 rating is Hollywood’s chosen method for torturing parents.  Judging whether or not a PG-13 movie is something we think our son can see is nothing but a crapshoot.

Sometimes, a PG-13 movie turns out to be perfectly acceptable.  For instance, our son loves Will Smith, to the point of asking for DVDs of the old Fresh Prince of Bel Air seasons for Christmas, so when I Am Legend came out, he obviously wanted to see it.  After some checking, it looked like there wasn’t going to be anything overtly sexual or gory, so I took him to see it, and it turned out to be fine.  Good movie, no real blood and guts, no nudity, not even any super harsh language.  If not for the somewhat scary subject matter, it would have been fine for most kids.  Our son isn’t really bothered at all by the scary stuff, so that was no problem at all.

Some PG-13 movies are so tame in fact, like the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, that we not only let him watch them, but let our 7-year old daughter see them, too.  On the other hand, there are some PG-13 movies that I wouldn’t want either of them to watch until they’re in high school.  For instance, our son was dying to see Talladega Nights, and I personally think that movie is hilarious, but it has all of the following in it:

• Will Ferrell’s character meets his wife when she flashes him at the race track.
• The have two sons, both younger than mine, who spew profanity throughout almost the entire movie.
• His wife cheats on him with his best friend, but only after the two of them have a grope session on the dinner table with the whole family watching.
• His main rival is an openly gay driver with a “husband”. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just a conversation I’d rather not have with my 12-year old yet.)
• His best friend tells him that he posed in Playgirl and described one of his poses in fairly graphic detail.

Sorry, but I don’t think that kind of stuff falls into the same category with the comic-book violence and complete lack of blood, nudity, sexuality, and profanity in Spiderman, yet they’re both rated PG-13.

Just today, he asked if it would be okay for him to see Meet the Spartans, another in a long line of spoof movies.  Well I’d never heard of it, so I looked it up on Yahoo Movies and immediately saw this line:

“PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, language and some comic violence.”

I can deal with “some comic violence”.  He sees more real violence on the nightly news, or watching the NFL on Sundays, than he’ll see in a PG-13 comedy.  But “crude and sexual content throughout” scares the hell out of me.  (Or is that Hell?)  It’s the “throughout” that tells me he shouldn’t see it.  Just “sexual content” these days can be anything from two teenagers necking in the car, with no one getting past first base, to a violent rape scene, nudity included.  The first I can deal with.  In fact, that’s been covered in more than one conversation already.  The second is something completely different, but not as far as Hollywood is concerned.  Remember, this is the same Hollywood that sees nothing wrong with Julia Louis-Dreyfus describing how she shaved her pubic hair in a commercial for her sitcom that aired at about two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon in the middle of the NCAA basketball tournament a couple of years ago.  That’s an event that more than a few young kids watch, so I’m still baffled as to how that commercial was deemed appropriate for that event in that time slot.

With Hollwood making decisions like that, the chances of me spending my money to take my son to a movie with that kind of description are pretty slim.  It would be nice if the movie industry would develop a better system, one that actually gives parents the information they need to make informed decisions.

But I’m not holding my breath on that one.