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Author Topic: Kids getting into R-rated movies? Joel N. Weber II Expert Film Handler Posts: 115 From: Somerville, MA, USA Registered: Dec 2005 posted 05-29-2007 12:31 PM                     When I was ten, I don't think I had easy access to enough money to buy R rated movies, nor opportunities to go shopping unsupervised to buy R arted movies. I think parents keeping track of where their children are has the potential to be more effective than businesses enforcing these things.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-29-2007 01:21 PM                        My personal opinion is that the 17 age requirement is too old. It should be 15. Kids are allowed to drive at 15, so if they can show a license, they should be able to get into an R movie. Most parents of 15 and 16 year olds will allow their kids into the R's anyway. Or another good cutoff would be "high school." Show your high-school ID card, get into the movie. That would still place the cutoff age at around 15 and that way a whole class of kids would become "eligible" at the same time. This doesn't work for home-schooled kids I guess, but then the driver's license idea would be a fallback plan. School ID or driver's license.  |  IP: Logged Joel N. Weber II Expert Film Handler Posts: 115 From: Somerville, MA, USA Registered: Dec 2005 posted 05-29-2007 08:25 PM                     There are plenty of valid reasons why someone who's old enough to get a driver's license might not have one: I don't think I bothered to get a license until I was about 17.5 years old. Some people have medical conditions that prevent driving. I imagine the parent of a home-schooled highschooler could talk to theater management to work things out, though.  |  IP: Logged James Westbrook Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1133 From: Lubbock, Texas, Usa Registered: Mar 2006 posted 05-29-2007 08:36 PM                     When I was a senior in high school, we watched The Godfather, Lady Sings The Blues and The Wild Bunch in Film Analysis class. All these titles are rated R. No one mentioned that some of the students were not yet 17...we just all kept our mouths shut and watched the films. It was in a class room, and the same rules about behavior in class applied here. The only drawback to 15 and 16 year olds are that some of these kids cannot behave in a theatre auditorium with their friends in a PG or 13 rated film, and the adults who view the R's do not welcome the distraction. On the other hand, if the minor is well behaved...then Mike's idea would work well.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-29-2007 09:32 PM                        Thing is, these 15 and 16 year olds are getting in anyway, so if we could let them in with the MPAA's blessing we'd save ourselves a lot of hassle and complaints. If the MPAA can keep changing the "rules" of the ratings (i.e. one use of "fuck" used to get an R, now you can have two or three "fucks" and still get a PG-13), then they should be able to change the age limits with no problem. I'd write to Valenti about this if he wasn't dead.  |  IP: Logged Dustin Mitchell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1865 From: Mondovi, WI, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 05-29-2007 11:59 PM                     The problem is the half of parents who do care are more vocal than the half that don't and if the MPAA was to make its rating system more lax there would be another congressional push for a federalized rating system and I don't think ANY of us want that.  |  IP: Logged Caleb Johnstone-Cowan Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 593 From: London, UK Registered: Mar 2006 posted 05-30-2007 07:00 PM                     If you watched an 'R' in class then you'd be with your teacher who is presumably in loco parentis, so technically no-one has been naughty.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-30-2007 10:04 PM                     You guys can rag all you want to about the R rating crap and kids sneaking in but I bet that most of you baby boomers here snuck into the X rated Drive Inn many times like my buddies and I did circa 1970 or so. Mark Noye: Special Spelling of Drive Inn is for Tim Reed .  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-30-2007 10:28 PM                        I think when I was a kid, the "M" rating was still in force. We could get parental blessing to go to the occasional "M" movie, but R's were completely off limits. I went to work at the Roxy in the fall of '75 so I probably ran quite a few R films before I actually sat down to watch one.  |  IP: Logged Robert E. Allen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1078 From: Checotah, Oklahoma Registered: Jul 2002 posted 05-30-2007 11:07 PM                     At the last house I managed, where I also booked the films, I had no problem with kids getting into R rated films - I didn't book them. At the corporate house where I now work anyone who looks under the age of 28 is asked for picture ID at the boxoffice and at the podium. Do those under 17 still get in? Probably. But while I come from the school where exhibitors felt a responsibility not to show some of the garbage that's being produced today I object to parents shoving their responsibility for guarding their children off onto us.  |  IP: Logged Dennis Benjamin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1445 From: Denton, MD Registered: Feb 2002 posted 05-31-2007 04:12 AM                        I can remember when I was a teenager. I had to go through a lot to sneak into a "R" film. In keeping with that tradition - I feel it is my civic duty to make sure the teenagers today have to go through the same amount of hassle too. It makes for good stories later in life...... But seriously - I have always (for the past 18 years) enforced the "R" rating. The ratings are there for a reason....  |  IP: Logged Pravin Ratnam Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 844 From: Atlanta, GA,USA Registered: Sep 2002 posted 06-03-2007 01:09 PM                     I actually have no problems with a ratings system. If anything, I wish there was a more detailed ratings system so that filmmakers wont have to quibble between a pg-13 and an R. Have like an R-14, R-15, R-16, R-17, etc. This way, when a movie gets rated, it wouldnt matter if the ratings board assigned a slightly stricter rating. Ratings have more room for error and the advisory nature of the rating gets emphasized. But I am against teens being barred from watching an R movie. If a parent allows their kids to go to the movies unsupervised, there is a lot more the kids can get away with than watching an R movie. Allowing some unsupervised kid to watch Matrix is not the end of the world.  |  IP: Logged Thomas Pitt Master Film Handler Posts: 266 From: Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK Registered: May 2007 posted 06-09-2007 05:34 PM                     In this country, the film ratings are actually easier to understand, I believe We have: U (Universal, equivalent to General Audience) PG (Parental Guidance) 12A (Nobody under 12 admitted unless accompanied by an adult) After that there are three age ratings - 12, 15, and 18. This means that nobody under that age should be allowed to see a movie of that rating. It's rumored that there's going to be a 21 rating introduced in the near future, but there's no confirmation of that yet. Getting back to the topic, the cinemas I've seen usually seem to run on a skeleton crew. There's usually one usher on the front gate to check your ticket and tell you what screen to go to. Sometimes there's another person working the concession stand, who is also selling tickets; there's nobody waiting outside each door. A kid could easily buy a ticket for something rated U, and there's nothing to stop them going into one of the other screens where an age-rated movie is showing! Having said that though, up until age 16 children are supposed to be in school every weekday. Most likely if they looked under 16, the usher would stop them getting in and ask why they weren't in school I assume that in the evenings and on weekends, the cinemas have many more staff there to cope with the high number of visitors. In that case, there's less chance that a kid could get into an age-rated movie.  |  IP: Logged Kara Tillotson Film Handler Posts: 87 From: Manistee Mi Registered: Jul 2006 posted 06-09-2007 08:57 PM                        what does an R rated movie mean legally and all?  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 06-09-2007 10:19 PM                     In the US, Kara, it means nothing at all. Ratings are completely voluntary. (OK, I hear that a small number of localities might've written them into law, but those are extremely rare). --jhawk  |  IP: Logged

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