Frozen 2 should be Rated R
interconnected.org
interconnected.org
Arendelle was already evacuated. No people were in danger from the tidal wave. Elsa was just saving the city from physical destruction.
I think you can also make a converse argument to the author very easily: death and disaster are common, almost universal, so avoiding discussing them in children’s media is over-protective.
In any event, I think there’s a point being missed here: the ratings system is a self-regulatory measure and mostly represents a way to classify films as the culture as a whole views profanity. In that respect, they have shifted over time as the definition of “acceptable” has shifted over time.
The author is really just lamenting the fact that their views don’t line up with the majority of Western society.
And that’s perfectly okay because the MPAA rating system is just one voluntary rating system of many. Parents are free to entirely ignore it, or they can reference the information rating systems from other countries, or third parties like common sense media.
As an analogy, the author could be upset if they were from a majority Muslim country and then decided to visit a nude beach in France. They might be upset about public display of nudity in that context. But they are in France and that is what is culturally acceptable in France in that specific public space.
There are numerous lists online that can be found with a search, but here's one by an IMDB user: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls020284330/
You could get away with some stuff in the 80s and keep PG.
Put it this way: My dad used to beat me, and that was less traumatic than that movie.
If Öoo is rated T, should games staring Donald Duck be rated 18+ because he doesn’t wear pants and would be showing his crotch to children?
[1]: https://www.nintendo.com/en-ca/store/products/ooo-switch/
[2]: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/the-legend-of-zel...
Maybe Mild Violence is more commonly applied to more real world violence and therefore scores higher in rating considerations or something. Because that's the only way I can make sense of that labelling.
Genuinely puzzling for sure
I think it’s worth pointing out that the MPAA is just a voluntary private ratings board. If they want to say violence is less serious than sex that’s their prerogative. I don’t have to agree with it.
Children’s fiction has always had a very dark side though.
But I also think that a lot of teen and preteen media has very little functional distinction from adult media.
A lot of non-parents don’t realize that the difference between G and PG can be huge. Shrek sounds like it should be something for a 3 year old but it really isn’t. Even without the torture scene it’s immediacy really scary. You have to go with something a lot more gentle than that for young kids.
I think the torture scene is funny to an adult as a mockery of the zeitgeist if you decide to interpret it that way. After all, Farquad is intended to be a villain.
I just rewatched it (link in sibling link). It's mocking Farquaad, but I think is clearly meant to be taken as slapstick. Implying that torture is no big deal.
Makes me think of the Home Alone series.
Still pretty bad (even though the gingerbread buttons were apparently spared), but... not literal, and not even figurative, waterboarding.
At the opening of the scene, the gingerbread man is being drowned in milk. You see from the shadow, and the voice, that he's having his head submerged in liquid. then Lord Farquaad says "enough! he's ready to talk". So that's simulated drowning as part of interrogation to get information.
Nit-picking about the exact _orientation_ of the victim, and therefore what type of simulated-drowning torture this constitutes, is somewhat missing the point I was trying to make! i.e. that torture is normalised to the point of being slapstick in a children's film.