The amount of violence, sex, profanity, and drug references that is exposed to children and teenagers through the media has been gradually increasing over the past few years. This has caused children and teenagers to do things like act more violent and use drugs and alcohol. It can cause them to think that these things are not as serious as they really are, because it is everywhere to be seen. Movies play a big part in this. Movies are rated to let people know what kind of content is held in them and to restrict certain ages from watching what they don’t need to be watching. Ratings also help parents know what not to show their kids.
The movie rating system consists of five different ratings which are G (“General Audiences”), PG (“Parental Guidance”), PG -13 (“Parental Guidance until the age of 13″), R (“Restricted”), and NC -17 (“No one 17 and Under Admitted”). The fact that movie makers keep making movies with more and more violence, sex, drugs, and profane language means that there are less and less movies being made that are free of those things. There are hardly any “G” rated movies that come out these days, that are fun for the whole family and okay for all ages to watch. Because of the fall in the making of “G” rated movies, “PG” rated movies have gradually become seen as decent movies that don’t necessarily need parental guidance. The world has gradually become less and less aware of the importance of keeping the youth from being exposed to things such as drugs, sex, violence and foul language. As this happens, more bad things start to appear in movies that for example, should be rated “R” but are rated “PG-13″ instead. Movies that are rated “PG” these days would have been considered rated “PG-13″ a decade ago.
The importance of drawing people in and making more money plays a part in this situation. An online source reflects on this:
“Movie ratings are becoming less and less trustworthy in terms of giving parents real guidance on shows with unsuitable content. PG-13 movies tend to make more money than R-rated films, and as a result, the industry is experiencing a “ratings creep”: shows that the Motion Picture Association of America would once have rated R are now being rated as PG-13, in order to increase box-office profits and rental sales.”
The movie rating system used to be strong in giving fair ratings to movies, but it has weakened over time. Movie ratings should be fair according to the content of the movies so that the young and naive are kept from seeing the bad things that they could be vulnerable to. Children and teens should not be exposed to violence, drugs, etc. until they are old enough to handle them maturally.