It’s Friday night. It’s been a long week, and movie night with the family is calling your name. You’re trying to nail down a movie choice for the family, which isn’t easy since your kids range from 3rd grade to sophomore in high school. PG movie it is. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem should be a safe pick. Enough action for the older kids, but nothing too wild for your eight-year-old. Turns out, it has 89 counts of violence. 15 counts of profanity, 13 counts of blasphemy, and 30 counts of vulgar, childish language. Your eight-year-old is absorbing every single moment. Your wife is scoffing in your direction. Whoopsies.
But it was rated PG! If PG-13 is deemed “okay” for kids 13 years of age and older, shouldn’t PG be kosher for your eight-year-old? Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.
PG means “parental guidance” advised, which the general public typically assumes this movie would be suitable for viewers of all ages. The MPA film rating site states, “May contain some material parents might not like for their young children.”
By nature, movie ratings just seem too ambiguous. Thousands upon thousands of movies are supposed to fit neatly within the realms of this rating system, essentially pigeonholed into just a handful of buckets. A room full of strangers get together, view a movie, and label it with a rating. Based on that rating, viewers oftentimes take the ratings at face value. PG-13 should be okay for teenagers, PG should be okay for elementary-school-aged children, and so on.
You have so many great resources at your fingertips, like Movie Guide, Common Sense Media, Parents IMDB, and so forth, to help you grasp whether a movie is suitable for your family. VidAngel allows you to make sure the movie is suitable for your family moment-by-moment. We provide a list of filters of profane language and graphic scenes before ever pressing play. You can press play with confidence during your next movie night, knowing your family will enjoy the movie.
A movie might have a lousy storyline and plot; we can’t fix that. That’s between you, the writers, and the directors themselves. We CAN help with the inappropriate parts, though. Find movies for your family to love without worrying about stumbling upon parts you don’t.
