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Offended! This was not for general audiences
11/14/2009
By Nigel Wallace
THE media is a very powerful and dangerous tool and for that reason, checks and balances have been put in place to allow people to decide for themselves whether or not they want to expose themselves and their loved ones to certain elements of our entertainment culture. Music albums come with warnings, certain magazines and publications are for adults only, and films are screened before they reach the public. But what happens when the screening committee responsible for rating a movie gets it wrong?
In order to provide a little perspective on this piece, I think it is important that everyone understands how I was raised. When I was about six years old, I remember popping “Transformers” the animated movie into a VCR and watching it over and over for an entire day. When my father got home and found out about this travesty, the VCR was packed up and sent away (much to the anger of my older brother and sister) and we were left without that medium of entertainment until well into my late teens. In fact, since I had proved I had such little self-control when faced with the danger of a sedentary lifestyle in front of the “idiot box”, my parents never installed cable until I was in university. So when I tell you that I never watched an “R” rated film until I was a much older teen, you can understand that I am not making this one up.
Sure, I snuck a peak at a few films with said rating at friends’ homes, but given the way I was being raised, I would always suggest some other activity to occupy our time when I thought things were getting a little too adult for my liking. Because of my upbringing, I found a great passion for reading books, playing sports and generally monitoring the amount of time I spent looking at a screen. I suppose it is ironic therefore that most of my life revolves around this very screen I am looking at now, which I use to do my work, edit my photos and watch my favourite films and television shows.
The point, of course, is that I believe my parents, who are the best people I know, made a serious effort to shield me from the things my young mind was not prepared to handle. As I got older and more independent, they could not directly control this aspect of my life anymore, but as they always say, “Raise a child in the way he should go …”
With all this in mind, you can now appreciate why this piece has been entitled “Offended”, when I explain how horrified I was when I learnt that a very popular film being shown in this nation’s cinemas has been given a rating that is not in accordance with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). If you doubt me, just take a quick on-line trip over to www.whowillsurvive2012.com or check out www.imdb.com and see what this currently showing film has been rated in the US.
Now you can call me a prude since the disparity in the rating of said film is not the difference between “G” (General Audiences) and “X” (Strong Adult Content), but I will accept that title when I consider the effort my parents put into keeping me away from the things that would shape my future. Having watched the film on opening night, I can tell you that there is no way this movie should ever be rated “G”. Aside from the scenes of mass destruction, mass suicide, bloodshed and chaos, I can tell you that a film stops being a “G” (in my opinion) the minute an actor begins to use curse words.
This is an absolute travesty, and I don’t know who is meant to administer the system that rates films in this country, but I can state categorically that something needs to be done. For the parents, who are anything like mine, I can only warn you to triple check the listings you see in our local newspapers and on the websites of these companies. If you want to keep your children away from harmful media influences, take the extra effort because I can assure you this is not the first time I have been faced with what I considered an incorrect rating. The last time was even worse, since it was a double feature where a Disney cartoon was doubled with an adult comedy featuring bad language and references to sex toys and sexual situations.
What really upsets me is that it took me one viewing of the film in question to figure out that it was not rated “G”. More upsetting, however, is that it took a 60-second trip to the film’s website to see that the MPAA could have told me that already.
For the parents, uncles, guardians and even older siblings who did not realise what they were getting into and are upset because they felt forced to leave the film early, my condolences. I can only hope something will be done to ensure that a better system for rating films for our young children to view is done in the future.
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