I've come to the conclusion that now is the time to be rid of film ratings. I've been wondering for a while...in fact since finding out that when the boy was still at primary school, certain of his friends were allowed by their very well educated parents to watch Quentin Tarantino films...the boy himself was given the opportunity one sleepover to watch a film that gave him nightmares for weeks afterwards.
Mind you these were at the same parents that thought it fine to give the boys bangers to put into bags of flour to see the mess they could make when the went off with a bang. The boy returned home from that little venture with half a dozen bangers in his pocket. He never returned for their hospitality again. So the point being, that if the parents ignore the certficate, then there's not much point having them in the first place.
This year we went to see the latest Batman film...rated a twelve, but in places so menacing, that I think more appropriate for a fifteen/sixteen year old. And just recently I watched Sweeney Todd, which achieved an 18 rating, although the violence was so surreal, that I doubt it could seriously impact on a younger viewer; by contrast, No Country for Old Men is just a 15, yet the violence is menacing and graphic and the emotion behind deeply impactful.
More confusingly is that I've taken the boy to films at the cinema perfectly legally, yet when we've gone to buy the DVD a few months later, it's jumped up a rating, so technically he shouldn't watch it, nor the Playstation game that seeems to accompany every movie masterpiece these days.
Perhaps we could look at them backwards? !8s for 12 years olds, 12s for 18 year olds? I felt you hit on a very interesting point there about the strength and depth of emotion contained in a film. This doesn't seem to be considered does it? Yet feelings are what give rise to action. Hmmm.
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