You're off to the
movies with the kids. You've got the car keys, the snacks,
and the diaper bag. Everyone has made a trip to the bathroom
and you have a wallet full of money for the tickets. You
are going to the new animated adventure everyone's talking
about and you already checked the paper for the show schedule.
Of course, there's something else, something a MediaWise
parent would never forget: the movie's rating. But you checked
- the film is PG, so there's nothing to worry about.
For over thirty years, American parents have depended on
the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to help
them decide which films are appropriate for their children.
The ratings screen for violence, sexual content, nudity,
language, and drug use and include a short description of
mature content along with the rating.
Sometimes parents make an educated choice to allow their
children to see movies that have earned an adult rating.
I remember hearing of many families that brought their children
to the R-rated Schindler's List because they felt
the value of helping kids understand history outweighed
the brutality of the violence. Thanks to the MPAA, parents
knew what their children would see. According to the industry's
accuracy standards, brutal violence will earn an R rating.
A new study from researchers out of UCLA suggests the ratings
may not be as accurate as they should be. Examining a sample
of 98 popular films, the study found movie ratings often
don't reflect the "seriousness" of the violence.
And the rating descriptors sometimes only call attention
to language in PG-13 films even when the films are as violent
as R-rated pictures.
Overall, the ratings do reflect the violent content of films.
But the researchers found many glaring exceptions. Perhaps
most disturbing was this one: the movie that had the second
most violent acts was an animated movie rated PG. The authors
of the study recommend parents seek other sources of information
about films before taking the kids.
The study considered movies from 1994. In the decade since,
I've seen many reports of "ratings creep," the
phenomena of PG and PG-13 ratings being given to films that
would have received an R years ago. It's encouraging that
many of the biggest-grossing films of the last few years
have been PG and PG-13 films aimed at family audiences.
That news is a bit less encouraging when you know that a
PG-13 rating isn't what it used to be.
On-screen violence has a powerful impact on kids. We have
an ever-growing mountain of evidence. We owe it to kids
to protect them from the harm of violent media. My two cents
are the same as the UCLA psychologists' advice: be mindful
of just what it is you're taking your kids to see. If you
know it's safe, then going to the movies will be a nice
mindless escape for the whole family.
David Walsh, Ph.D. is the founder of the
MediaWise Movement, a program of the National Institute
on Media and the Family (www.mediafamily.org).
His latest book is Why Do They Act That Way? A Survival
Guide to the Adolescent Brain for You and Your Teen
is a national best seller.
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