Cracks in the ratings leave parents in the lurch

The PG-13 movie rating turns 20 this year, but the mood surrounding the anniversary is hardly celebratory. Two decades after the decision to close the gap between PG and R-rated movies, critics and family advocates are charging that an overall ratings reform is in order. Their efforts are fueled in part by parental concern and at least one 2004 study suggesting that the PG-13 movies of today are approaching the content of the R-rated movies of 10 years ago.

To better help parents monitor an expanding universe of media, some observers are calling for a uniform rating system that covers everything: movies, TV, and videogames. Others suggest changes to the current ratings, such as an R-13 category or even an A for adult movies that aren't pornographic, as a way to address the problematic rating at the center of the debate.

"The PG-13 rating has been the heart of most of the complaints and most of the problems with the rating system, particularly in the last 10 years," says Michael Medved, a cultural critic and host of a syndicated radio talk show. "Most American parents have never fully registered the essential difference between PG and PG-13. In fact, I think you could say the rating was deliberately designed to obfuscate."

Back in 1984, PG-13 looked like a good answer to the problem of more nudity and violence slipping into PG movies. The 1984 film "Sixteen Candles" was rated PG, for example, even though it contains a shower scene in which a woman is shown topless. But it was another 1984 film that galvanized the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to add the extra rating it had already been considering - the Stephen Spielberg-George Lucas project "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." That movie earned a PG rating despite the fact that a scene showed a man's beating heart being removed from his chest.

Since then, Hollywood has become more enamored of the rating. At the box office, PG-13 movies are now more common than R-rated ones among the top-grossing films in the United States. Of all the movies released between January 2000 and August 21 2004, 108 earned more than $100 million, and of those 62 were rated PG-13, and 20 were rated R, according to Exhibitor Relations Co., a box-office tracking firm in Los Angeles. (By way of comparison, between 1990 and 99, of the 128 movies that earned more than $100 million, 46 were rated PG-13, and 45 were R.)

Movie critic Roger Ebert, in an e-mail, says Hollywood isn't directly influencing how movies are categorized, but that "there has been steady, relentless pressure over the years to expand the scope of what is permissible within PG-13."

Some parents say they don't typically rely on ratings alone. Instead, they scan local papers and the Internet (where they can find independent reviews on sites like www.screenit.com and www.kidsinmind.com) for additional information.

Maige Becerra of Manhattan reads The New York Times, the New York Daily News, and the Village Voice to determine whether her 13-year-old daughter, Renee, will be permitted to see movies such as the 2003 remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (that was a "no") or the recent R-rated "Garden State," which the two attended together.

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