Is PG-13 a Problem?

It's a common complaint that the PG-13 rating has become so ubiquitous that it's lost all meaning. Films that have a PG-13 rating are widely regarded as having the biggest potential audience. It's low enough that teenagers and older children can buy tickets, while high enough that adults don't feel self-conscious watching the films either. All the recent superhero films fall into this range, and all the other big action spectaculars that usually show up at the top of the box office charts. This means that studios now place more value on the PG-13 rating than on R and PG ratings, and we've seen Hollywood's output shift over the years to reflect this.

Because so many, many films now occupy the rating, the PG-13 has seen the most incidences of controversy, as the MPAA has not been consistent about applying ratings. Realistic violence must be rated R, but fantasy violence gets a PG-13, a distinction that has been pushed to the absolute limits. "Wolverine" and "World War Z" get away with PG-13 ratings, because the majority of the carnage is being directed against zombies and mutants. Meanwhile, discussion of sexual activity and brief profanities get a PG-13, but any depiction of actual sex or drug use gets an R-rating. Often the distinction is almost impossible to discern. Can you figure out why "Hope Springs" and "Ruby Sparks" have different ratings? And there's the recent case of "The Conjuring," a horror film that got an R-rating simply for being intense and frightening. There's no nudity, no profanity, and only mild violence. Clearly the MPAA is not playing fair.

The emphasis on PG-13 films has also had a problematic impact on the commercial filmmaking landscape. Parental groups and media watchdogs have long complained that the preference for PG-13 has had a negative effect on films with lower ratings. G-rated films are almost nonexistent. Most of the animated CGI films made for children are PG by default, and there's been a worrying trend of young characters being aged up, and stories becoming more action-oriented and violent. Thirty years ago, there were widespread discussions in the critical community about increased violence in the movies being a problem, discussions that lead to the creation of the PG-13 rating in 1984. I wasn't for one side over another in that fight, but it remains a good discussion worth having, and it worries me that the movie violence issue seems to have all but disappeared, especially when we're at a juncture where it would make sense to revisit and adjust the MPAA rating system again.

However, when you hear complaints about films being PG-13, usually it's in the context of action franchises like "Die Hard," where fans are worried about the movies getting watered down or bowdlerized in order to help the studios make a few more dollars from younger viewers who wouldn't go to an R-rated movie. The same impulse is also responsible for fewer R-rated studio movies in general. And when they are made, I've noticed that the majority are still aimed at younger audiences. Raunchy comedies, ultra-violent action films, and gory horror - these are movies that suit the tastes of teenagers and young adults, that rarely treat the heavier content with any seriousness and maturity. Movies made for grown-ups with any artistic ambitions at all, are almost all independent films now. This year there's been a sharp uptick in R-rated action films and thrillers with major marquee talent, like "The Place Beyond the Pines" and "Trance," playing arthouse theaters.

Or else they're on television. I've been catching up on HBO's "Game of Thrones" recently (write-ups are coming soon), and marveling at how well the show has handled sex and violence and nudity and profanity and death in abundance. If "Game of Thrones" were a series of films, it would consistently get R-ratings. However, the R-rated fantasy films actually are in theaters tend to be far more juvenile, flashy productions like "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters" and "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter." Because the audience for these films is seen as being smaller and more niche, they tend to be less risky and less ambitious, with smaller budgets. Guillermo Del Toro couldn't get his Lovecraftian "At the Mountains of Madness" off the ground, even with Tom Cruise attached to star. One reason "Thrones" has attracted so much attention is because there hasn't been a major fantasy media franchise with a real adult sensibility before, where the mature content serves the story instead of the other way around. The idea is apparently so alien, that after three successful seasons of "Game of Thrones," we still haven't seen any other media try to follow its model or capitalize on similar subject matter.

The biggest reason why the quality of TV has been edging ahead of the movies lately is because the movie studios have chosen to tie their fortunes to PG-13 action films, and have stopped making or cut back on nearly everything else. The diversity in mainstream movies is quickly disappearing, especially during the summer months when the multiplexes are full of expensive, but unambitious CGI spectacles. As we've seen this summer, all of these big tentpole movies are starting to look the same, and maybe that's why smaller and more offbeat films like the R-rated "The Conjuring," "The Heat," and "The Purge," have been quietly attracting more attention. Meanwhile on television, and especially on cable, there seems to be a new adult drama proclaimed to be a critical darling every week. Though television does have content ratings, those ratings play almost no part in determining the content being produced.

Is the PG-13 rating a problem? In individual cases, usually no. There’s no reason why a PG-13 “Die Hard” movie can’t be as good as a R-rated one. But the PG-13 mindset is a problem, one that is doing serious damage to the state of Hollywood movies.

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