Show us butts, not guts

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:07:03 GMT

By Californian Staff

Carlo Miraflor

America is a strange country. Our priorities are often skewed and our values often illogical. This is most clearly demonstrated by the criteria used to judge a movie’s rating. We seem to have this asinine sensitivity toward sex and nudity in all forms, but apparently find graphic violence perfectly acceptable. Here’s a brief breakdown of the movie rating system. A G-rated movie is appropriate for all ages, while PG movies may contain very brief and insignificant elements of nudity, violence or profanity. A PG-13 movie may contain stronger amounts of violence and profanity, but nudity is very rare. An R-rated movie is where it gets fun – violence, swearing, and sex run amok. And finally, an NC-17 movie will pollute your mind and corrupt your soul. While these ratings sound good on paper, one must actually see them working in action to understand how messed up they are. For example, “Jaws” and the original “Poltergeist” movie have both been lauded as some of the scariest movies ever made. Yet, both are rated PG. Though the PG-13 rating was not added until 1984, by giving these movies a PG rather than an R rating, the Motion Picture Association clearly felt that these movies were acceptable for children to watch. Now, take a movie like “Lost in Translation.” Though the majority of the movie was clean and family-friendly, it was rated R for one brief scene involving nudity. Where’s the logic in that? Why is it that whenever a breast or a butt is shown on television, American parents have a conniption? And yet, it’s perfectly okay to expose children to something like murderous clowns jumping out from under their beds, or sharks munching the arm off a sun-bleached surf bum. Now, this may sound crazy, but some people believe that it’s more dangerous to expose children to violence and drugs than it is to nudity. They’re called Europeans. All of this truly highlights the absurd morals and priorities of America. Sex is the most natural thing humans can do. We are evolutionarily designed to do it! But we lambast movies with this type of content by pasting a giant “Restricted” label on them. While it is impossible to know for sure, it may stem from the fact that many Americans are uncomfortable with being open about sexuality. This discomfort results in parents not wanting to speak with their children about it, and thus the movie ratings that we have today are created. Yes, in our bizarre nation, the breast is more dangerous than the bomb. Hopefully we snap out of this ridiculous belief system before our country is full of pot-smoking serial killers who, thank goodness, will have learned to keep themselves fully-clothed.

The Californian

Show us butts, not guts