Movie Ratings:
Can you trust what they’re telling you?

BY ROD GUSTAFSON

Movies in Canada frequently receive more lenient ratings than those in the United States. While parents can take comfort in knowing our ratings are enforced by law, potential profits from lucrative teen audiences motivate studios to lobby for the least restrictive ratings.

Two recent films left even hardened U.S. movie critics wondering how they received just an R rating (meaning those under 17 can attend with a parent or adult guardian) rather than NC-17 (no one 17 or under admitted) from the Motion Picture Association of America. Yet in Canada, both Scary Movie and its even more offensive sequel, Scary Movie 2, were deemed acceptable for varying ages, depending on which province you were in.

Scary Movie, a parody of teen psycho-killer flicks, includes a scene—not untypical—where a boy begs his teen girlfriend for sex, then has an explosive orgasm that plasters her to the ceiling. Scary Movie 2 runs the gamut of sexual portrayals such as a clown being anal-ly penetrated by a giant penis, a woman thrown against a wall by an invisible ghost who forces her to have oral sex, and a man in a wheelchair who pleasures himself. Adolescent characters are seen using drugs and drinking, even while driving. And both movies are littered with derogatory dialogue and cruel actions directed at minorities or the handicapped. Although everything is played for laughs, it’s difficult to see humour in scenes such as the one in which a female high-school student is repeatedly stabbed and eventually decapitated in a school locker room.

The Restricted label in the United States sends a strong message to parents about the likelihood of content inappropriate for viewers under 17, but Canadian families (with the exception of those in Alberta) get no such warning. The Canadian Home Video Rating System even suggests that Scary Movie and Scary Movie 2—now forever available on home video—are suitable for anyone 14 or over.

How old do you have to be? It depends…

British Columbia: 14

Alberta: 18

Saskatchewan: 14

Manitoba: 15

Ontario: 14

Quebec: 13

Maritimes: 14

Newfoundland: 14

Minimum age to see “Scary Movie” and “Scary Movie 2” without an adult.

To be sure a movie meets your family’s standards, look for clues to objectionable subject matter in the film’s advertising and other prerelease hype. Listen to opinions of trusted friends, or research the title on a family-movie-review web site. Finally, sit down as a family and use the information you’ve gathered to determine your own movie-rating system.

Here’s a selection of family-movie-review web sites:
www.screenit.com
www.moviemom.com
www.family.org/pplace/pi/
www.gradingthemovies.com

ILLUSTRATION: © PHILIPPE BEHA

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