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I absolutely love going to the movies. I always have fun even if I don’t always like the movie I watched, because I am able to see another’s perspective on a story and be taken on an adventure of storytelling. The only times I do not enjoy a movie is when in the middle of watching it, something unexpected pops up. I don’t mean jump scares, because if it is a scary movie that is actually expected. I mean when I go to watch a  movie that is marketed as action and adventure, but has heavy sexual scenes, or a movie that is said to be great for the family, but then has explicit language. 

When I was growing up movie ratings seemed pretty straight forward, G was for everyone and you could expect the movie to be targeted towards kids. PG was a little more adventurous but still appropriate for elementary aged children. PG-13 saw a real transition of this is okay for teenagers, but if your small child watches it, you may want to censor some things. And R was strictly for ages 18 and older, and you could guarantee that most parents would disapprove of you watching it. 

I used to be able to look at a rating and safely guess if it would be appropriate or not. I distinctly remember this changed for me in 2019 when I went to go see The Peanut Butter Falcon. I am sure there were other movies before this that had a similar change, but this movie in particular is the one that always stuck with me. 

I was watching the movie with a friend, and we had both seen that the rating was PG-13, so we thought that being 17 years old, the movie would be perfectly appropriate. They said the first f-bomb, and that was completely normal. Then they said it two more times in the movie and I was very confused. Growing up I was under the false impression that in a PG-13 movie they could only say the f-bomb once. It was so distracting to me hearing it three times in the movie that I definitely missed parts of the plot because I was trying to figure out if I was accidentally watching a rated R movie. 

Since then, I have noticed more and more that PG-13 is still deemed appropriate for teenagers, and yet more and more things that are generally deemed inappropriate are in these movies. I have a little brother who is special needs and sensitive to violent depictions, and since he has turned 13 we have wanted to include him in watching “teenage” movies, however, we have to check every time before we watch a movie why it is rated PG-13 to make sure it is not too extreme, and a lot of the times parts of the movies are spoiled in the process. 

I want to be able to rate movies not only on how well I thought the movie was, but also to be able to rate movies on the appropriateness, and to be able to include warnings without spoilers for those who love watching movies like I do, but don’t quite trust the rating system anymore.

Audience Statement: My intended audience is people around my same age who like to watch movies, but have noticed the change in movie ratings. I used this story to connect with those who have watched a movie or movies that they feel don’t quite match the rating it was given. This story is relevant because there is concern not only among parents, but also among young adults, and teenagers, who care about what they watch, who used to be able to use movie ratings as a useful guide, but now need to do more research before watching certain movies, that unfortunately sometimes spoil the movie in the process.