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The PG-13 has also accentuated the puritanical American ideal that sex and language are far more offensive than acts of violence. Ask yourself when you last saw a sex scene or nudity in a PG-13-rated movie. (I'll chime in: 2017's "Battle of the Sexes.") Or saw one with the same amount of salty language as, say, 1976's "The Bad News Bears."
Are either of those elements more harmful to teenagers than watching Sly Stallone machine gun a gazillion people in the PG-13 rated "The Expendables 3''?
I'll get back on my soapbox in a minute.
As a kid, I was obsessed with the MPAA ratings system -- now called MPA -- because it typically told me whether I'd be able to see a movie. Note I said "typically." My mom was the stickler for ratings. But if an older cousin or a more lenient auntie took me to the cinema, all bets were off: An R-rated movie could invade my eyes just as easily as a G-rated one.
As a little kid, I was more traumatized by the G-rated movies. Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937) terrified me, as did the studio's version of "Pinocchio" (1940). Don't get me started on the nightmares I had after seeing 1977's animated atrocity "The Mouse and His Child."
On the other hand, I thought "The Exorcist" was hilarious.
My particular obsession was that R-rating, a no-no for me as you had to be either 17 to get in "unless accompanied by a parent or guardian." I often refer to the R as "my childhood nemesis." But I really didn't have to tangle with the R until I was around 10, old enough to see movies without an adult. The box office in my hometown theaters in Jersey City strictly enforced the ratings system, which only stoked my desire to taste the forbidden fruit of the restricted movie.
Fast-forward to 1984. I had become quite adept at sneaking into R-rated movies, though PG-rated soon-to-be blockbusters like "Ghostbusters," "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," and "Gremlins" were on my radar. The latter two were also on the radar of angry parents whose kids had been traumatized by those films.
Enter the PG-13. Legend has it the rating was all Steven Spielberg's doing, and that, in one fateful year, the film he produced ("Gremlins") and the one he directed ("Temple of Doom") were the sole reasons for its existence. Of course, there were other films singled out for pushing what was considered the respectable boundaries of the PG rating in 1984.
For example, the violence in Walter Hill's "Streets of Fire," and the sexuality, nudity, and language of the Sean Penn-Elizabeth McGovern starrer "Racing with the Moon," contributed to the consideration of a rating between PG and R.
But those movies weren't big hits, and more importantly, they weren't assumed to be kid-friendly fare like "Gremlins." Joe Dante's creature comedy was the straw that broke the camel's back. Suddenly, it was all about "protecting the children." Whenever these hypothetical unprotected children get referenced, you can be sure some censoring nonsense is about to go down.
Alexander Walker's angry, hyperbolic review in The Guardian stated that "'Gremlins' snatches the security blanket from everything that has been held holy in children's movies ... even the beloved memory of Walt Disney." I wonder if Walker sat through "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" when he was 4, as I did. Or "Bambi."
What irks me most is the often-ignored fact that Disney, like the Brothers Grimm, made works that scared the hell out of kids to keep them in line. People also forget that Spielberg is a director who loves killing people onscreen. I mean, he fed a little kid to Bruce the Shark in "Jaws," for Pete's sake! Why would parents expect his movies to be OK for scared little kids?
Oh yeah, he also made "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial."
According to Filipa Antunes's 2020 book "Children Beware! Childhood, Horror and The PG-13 rating," both the Disney studios and a different Spielberg-affiliated movie, 1982's "Poltergeist," got the ball rolling on the new rating. Her theory is that the PG-13 originally existed to usher in an era of horror movies for preteens.
Antunes points out that Disney's early 1980s attempts to reach preadolescent audiences with horror movies like 1980's Bette Davis film, "The Watcher in the Woods," failed because skittish studio execs thought they were too intense for the company brand. (We eventually got Disney's subsidiary, Touchstone Pictures, to handle more mature films.)
Of course, Spielberg and director Tobe Hooper had no such compunction -- "Poltergeist" scared the hell out of 12-year-old me. So, thanks to his role as a producer, Spielberg may be more responsible for the PG-13 than I initially suggested.
Intriguing as it is, I don't completely buy Antunes's theory. However, she brings up a movie that helps explain my eventual hatred of the PG-13: Tim Burton's massive hit "Batman." Made in 1989, Burton's dark vision of Gotham City had a great Jack Nicholson performance and a killer Prince soundtrack; but as evidenced by its violence, it was not made for children.
Kids could still see it, however, as the PG-13 rating held no power at restricting audiences like the R. For me, that's where the hypocrisy begins. G and PG were no longer cool to young moviegoers because the PG-13 seemed naughtier. Since the movie market is driven by the concept that there will always be a new generation of tweens, and they weren't going to pay to see an "uncool" movie, the PG-13 became the desired rating for almost everything Hollywood churned out.
That's why eight of the current top 10 highest-grossing movies of all time are rated PG-13. And only one of those movies -- 1997's "Titanic" -- is a drama aimed at adults.
Burton's "Batman" planted the seeds for our current never-ending series of superhero movies. Some of them, I admit, are good, like "The Dark Knight" and "Black Panther." The vast majority are rated PG-13. Three are on the list of top 10 highest-grossing movies of all time.
And all of them are far more violent than anything the pre-PG-13 era could have churned out in a PG movie.
The current use of the PG-13 shows how ineffective the ratings system has become. It's time for another overhaul.