The MPAA rating explanations are rated stupid for excessive amounts of dumb
Ok, so, confession: In between reading awful graduate papers, I often check out movie/game/music reviews at metacritic.com. For those of you that haven’t looked at this site before (I’m look at you, Oskar!), it’s really a bored-out-of-my-mind-at-work-must. Seriously. Good stuff.
At any rate, as many of you probably guessed (I’m using “many” loosely here since my guess is that the only person that reads this is my wife), I enjoy reading the bad reviews far more than the good ones – the responses to Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns or Planet B-Boy (apparently a movie — seriously), you know, the good stuff that makes me not hate professional movie reviewers b/c I then realize that they have to sit through this crap. And this obviously brings me to my principle film of focus: Drillbit Taylor.
Now, first of all, Drillbit Taylor should not be bad. It has some sort of Apatow association with it and it stars the usually enjoyable (when associated with Wes Anderson) Owen Wilson. But the fact of the matter is that this movie is, apparently, bad. Very, very bad. And dumb. Very, very, very dumb. In fact, from all the previews I’ve seen, I might even go so far as to call it horrible – a kids-consult-loser movie that Billy Bob Thorton apparently wouldn’t even touch since he’s made it at least three times before (Mr. Woodcock, School for Scoundrels, Bad News Bears). But I’m digressing. Anyway…as you probably guessed, I’ve been dying to see the particularly bad reviews for Drillbit (my fave, if you’re wondering, refers to the film as “shit” [http://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?section=reviews&Id=10863])
Ok, so, to my point here: while looking through all of these reviews (http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/drillbittaylor), I happen to catch the MPAA explanation for why the movie is rated PG-13. Here it ’tis:
PG-13 for crude sexual references throughout, strong bullying, language, drug references and partial nudity
Now, I’m no prude, mind you, but I’m also no crazy let-the-kiddies-see-what-they-want guy either. That being said, let’s go through these a bit:
“crude sexual references throughout” and “partial nudity” – ok, these make sense to me. Perhaps someone younger than 13 shouldn’t be exposed to this sorta stuff.
“language” and “drug references” – hmm. Ok, a bit more debatable here in my opinion, but whatever. Let’s assume that these are on the fence of acceptability here for the under-13 crowd.
So, that leaves us with what? That’s right, “strong bullying”! Now, how in the hell have we gotten to the point that strong bullying is considered offensive. TO ANYONE! And furthermore, what the hell constitutes “strong” bullying? Like was a mom on the fence about letting her little boy see Drillbit Taylor and then eventually decided that, while she might be ok with “bullying,” bullying of the “strong” variety might be just too much to handle? I mean this is ridiculous, isn’t it? If the MPAA is going to mention “strong bullying” as a reason why a movie received the rating it did, then I basically want a full list of disclosures of unpleasant things that I might be exposed to in my films. Things like “extended shots of Andy McDowell’s nostrils” or “strong focus on emotionless thing called a Keeanu.” I’m serious. Seriously.
[end rant]
