That Rating Doesn't Seem Right?

With the creation of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America’s film-rating system), parents could make an informed decision on what movies they felt were inappropriate for their children to see. However this was hard to do in the beginning, as the rating system was fairly broad. The PG-13 rating was created for just this reason. It was made for movies with content that was to hard for PG, but not extreme enough for R. Before the inception of the PG-13 rating, many movies were rated PG and R that didn’t deserve those ratings. Below are examples of a PG rated movie and an R rated movie that if reviewed today would have received a PG-13 rating. The first is an obscure unknown movie about a killer shark named Jaws. The latter is a low budget horror movie named The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Jaws, as most people already know, tells the story of a man eating shark that terrorizes a small east coast beaching town. After a series of attacks a trio of men go out to sea to hunt down and kill the animal. While the movie is rated PG, there are several elements and visions throughout the picture that just aren’t seen by today’s PG rated standards. Severed limbs, dismembered corpses, foul language, and animal carcasses are some of the unseemly sights that are witnessed.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a 1970’s horror movie that involves a group of young adults who are hunted down by a family of cannibals. What’s interesting is that despite the grizzly premise and exploitative title the movie doesn’t have a great deal of carnage in it. Almost all of the violence occurs either off screen or in quick cuts. In addition to minimal violence language is also pretty tame. This was no mere accident, as the director had hoped that the movie would be released with a PG rating. Despite the care taken to minimize violence the picture still ended up being rated R.