# What movies ratings have been the most incorrect? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 19, 2008, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500 "2008-08-19T00:22:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/41 "2008-08-20T17:41:05Z")
Why did the John Carpenter version of **The Thing** get an R rating? Everybody thinks it’s an incredibly gross and gory movie, but when you come down to it, the only real violence you see to people are a helicopter blowing up, a guy shot in the eye (and another shot in the head), and a guy’s hands geting cut off. Just about everything else either shows you an aftermath, or involves something unreal. The Swede with the cut wrists is a frozen corpse. ALL of the violence against the Thing in its many forms involves effects with puppeteers or with things attached to people. As the film stands, or possibly with a very little judicous cutting, it wouldn’t rate an R if people really looked. I’m convinced this film got its R rating because of perceived violence against a non-exisent creature that didn’t even really resemble any real animals. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/42 "2008-08-20T18:05:29Z")
[QUOTE=Icerigger] **Planet of the Apes** was rated G. The film has very graphic scenes of violence, nudity and swearing. No way should it have been G, not now and certainly not in 1968. [/QUOTE] I just watched a making-of documentary of all of the PotA films, and the producers and directors repeatedly stressed how important it was that the films were to be considered “family films” that you could bring the kids to. They filmed tons of extra violence and then just trimmed it down a bit, somehow to achieve a “G”. It truly boggles. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/43 "2008-08-20T18:20:59Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] Why did the John Carpenter version of **The Thing** get an R rating? Everybody thinks it’s an incredibly gross and gory movie, but when you come down to it, the only real violence you see to people are a helicopter blowing up, a guy shot in the eye (and another shot in the head), and a guy’s hands geting cut off. Just about everything else either shows you an aftermath, or involves something unreal. The Swede with the cut wrists is a frozen corpse. ALL of the violence against the Thing in its many forms involves effects with puppeteers or with things attached to people. As the film stands, or possibly with a very little judicous cutting, it wouldn’t rate an R if people really looked. I’m convinced this film got its R rating because of perceived violence against a non-exisent creature that didn’t even really resemble any real animals. [/QUOTE] You’re forgetting about the doctor’s hands getting chomped off when he went to defibrillate the feller in cardiac arrest (whose head subseqently grew legs). Oh, and when Wilford Brimley shoved his fingers through that guy’s facial skin right at the end, and Windows getting his head chomped during the “blood test” scene. The “blood test” scene is one of my all time favorites; very quiet, very tense. But I digress. Quite a lot of the time, the Thing looked mostly human, and on at least three occasions I can think of, a mostly-human-shaped Thing was destroyed with a blowtorch. The creature depicted may not be real, but I think they’re more concerned about appearances, and even though it was all puppets and such, what happened on the screen looked pretty violent. I reckon the “R” was deserved, although I’ve seen it on broadcast television with fairly minor cuts. ---
**Author:** ![Jelymag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d2c977/32.png) [@Jelymag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jelymag)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/44 "2008-08-20T18:35:51Z")
I took a government class once and, according to the teacher, the people who sit on the review board for MPAA actually doing the movie watching are ordinary people who get rotated out every few months. He said people get tapped to be on it, somewhat like jury duy. (His point was that movie ratings are a big way to tell what has become more acceptable by society over time.) I questioned if the guy really knew what he was talkng about, but being pretty indifferent, never went to the trouble of finding out. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/45 "2008-08-20T18:40:01Z")
[Who rates the movies and how does it work?](http://mpaa.org/Ratings_HowRated.asp): > [@](#): > > The ratings are decided by a full-time Rating Board located in Los Angeles. There are 10-13 members of the Board who serve for periods of varying length. They work for the Classification and Rating Administration, which is funded by fees charged to producers/distributors for the rating of their films.… There are no special qualifications for Board membership, except that the members must have a shared parenthood experience, must be possessed of an intelligent maturity, and most of all, have the capacity to put themselves in the role of most American parents so they can view a film and apply a rating that most parents would find suitable and helpful in aiding their decisions about their children and what movies they see. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/46 "2008-08-20T18:45:53Z")
[Who decides the ratings for movies?](http://mpaa.org/Ratings_FAQ.asp): > [@](#): > > The ratings of motion pictures are determined by the rating board of the Classification and Rating Administration (“CARA”), which includes a Chairperson, a Vice-Chair, several Senior Raters and additional raters who all participate in the rating of individual motion pictures. The ratings are based on the level of certain content in the motion picture in order to provide parents with information to help them determine each film’s suitability for viewing by their children. CARA attempts to select a diverse group of raters who represent the diversity of American parents such as parents from different parts of the country, including small towns and big cities. Each member of the rating board is a parent and has no affiliation with the entertainment industry outside their employment with CARA. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/47 "2008-08-20T19:14:19Z")
> [@](#): > > You’re forgetting about the doctor’s hands getting chomped off when he went to defibrillate the feller in cardiac arrest (whose head subseqently grew legs). No, I’m not – you’re not reading me carefully enough – I pointed that out. And Wilford Brimley sticking his hand in the guy’s mouth isn’t terrifically shocking (certainly not as shocking as the productio sketch of it was – that showed the fingers visible behind the eye socket). ---
**Author:** ![Scupper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Scupper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scupper)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/48 "2008-08-20T20:02:29Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] Why did the John Carpenter version of **The Thing** get an R rating? Everybody thinks it’s an incredibly gross and gory movie, but when you come down to it, the only real violence you see to people are a helicopter blowing up, a guy shot in the eye (and another shot in the head), and a guy’s hands geting cut off. Just about everything else either shows you an aftermath, or involves something unreal. The Swede with the cut wrists is a frozen corpse. ALL of the violence against the Thing in its many forms involves effects with puppeteers or with things attached to people. As the film stands, or possibly with a very little judicous cutting, it wouldn’t rate an R if people really looked. I’m convinced this film got its R rating because of perceived violence against a non-exisent creature that didn’t even really resemble any real animals. [/QUOTE] I can only assume you’re whooshing or don’t remember the movie very well. The movie would have earned an R-Rating based on a single scene: A kennel full of huskies howling in terror as a not-huskie’s face splits open and it slowly peels itself apart into a hideous, bloody monstrosity and impales them with intestine-like tendrils? These effects may seem dated now, but at the time they were horrifyingly realistic. If any movie was well-served by an R rating, **The Thing** is it. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/49 "2008-08-20T20:19:27Z")
> [@](#): > > I can only assume you’re whooshing or don’t remember the movie very well. > > The movie would have earned an R-Rating based on a single scene: > > A kennel full of huskies howling in terror as a not-huskie’s face splits open and it slowly peels itself apart into a hideous, bloody monstrosity and impales them with intestine-like tendrils? > > These effects may seem dated now, but at the time they were horrifyingly realistic. > > If any movie was well-served by an R rating, The Thing is it. I can only assume that nobody’s reading my posts carefully. _IT’S NOT A REAL DOG. IT’S NOT EVEN A MODEL OF A REAL DOG. IT’s A WHOLLY IMAGINARY CREATURE THAT ONLY SUPERFICIALLY RESEMBLES A DOG_ I’m convinced that, if this is the only reason they’d give it an “R”, then they could’ve avoided it by coloring the “blood”, say, _GREEN_. It seems to me that they’ve given this whole movie an “R” rating because it shows the bizarre biological behavior of a totally imaginary creature in gory (literally) detail. Need I point out that, in the scene in question, the creature itself wasn’t even harmed? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/50 "2008-08-20T20:27:38Z")
Well, when people die in movies, they really don’t die. So what? ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/51 "2008-08-20T20:34:03Z")
> [@Jelymag](#): > > I took a government class once and, according to the teacher, the people who sit on the review board for MPAA actually doing the movie watching are ordinary people who get rotated out every few months. He said people get tapped to be on it, somewhat like jury duy. (His point was that movie ratings are a big way to tell what has become more acceptable by society over time.) I questioned if the guy really knew what he was talkng about, but being pretty indifferent, never went to the trouble of finding out. According to the documentary _This Film Is Not Yet Rated_, the director of which hired private investigators to hunt down the ratings board, many of the raters have been on the board for years, including two priests (one Catholic, one Episcopalian) who sit on the appeals board. [QUOTE=CalMeacham] I’m convinced that, if this is the only reason they’d give it an “R”, then they could’ve avoided it by coloring the “blood”, say, _GREEN_. [/QUOTE] Coincidentially, turning red blood green is a common tactic used in video games to lower their ratings in countries such as Germany which have very strict laws against violence towards humans in video games. (Another one is turning the human villains into robots.) Sometimes it’s done in the states as well. When _The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time_ was rereleased, the blood Ganondorf coughs up during the final battle was changed from red to green in order to avoid a T rating. (Music was also changed in one of the dungeons to avoid offending Muslims, who believed it sounded too much like a holy chant. When the game was rereleased on the GameCube and Wii, a Islamic-looking star-and-cresent device which appeared throughout the game was also removed.) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/52 "2008-08-20T20:39:42Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, when people die in movies, they really don’t die. So what? Right, but there are really people, and they really die. And if they showed a real person being, say, pulled to bloody pieces they rightly give it an “R” rating (like in **Hellraiser** ), even though we know it’s not a real person, just special effects. If they pull a manikin apart, with white goop coming out, they don’t give it an “R” rating. When the vampires die in the TV series **Buffy the Vampire Slayer** by dissolving into dust, they can show it in prime time. Because it’s all imaginary, and can’t be mistaken for the real thing. In **The Thing** , the Thing-Dog isn’t even being killed. It splits apart and absorbs the other dogs. It’s part of its made-up life cycle. So the argument **Scupper** makes above is that the movie gets its R rating, in part, because we’re shown — what? Not a dog being torn to bloody bits, but the supposedly natural actions of a creature mimicking a dog that looks kinda like a dof being hurt. Of course, the tentacles and jointed insectoid legs coming out are pretty much a dead giveaway that this isn’t a real dog. So it seems to me that, aside from the hands chopped off and the couple of gunshots (both of which could get edited out), this movie gets an “R” rating simply for looking gross. I’m serious. When they showed this on CBS for the first time in the 1980s they could have just cuit out the hands and gunshot scenes (which they did), but \*they also cut out almost every other scene of The Thing, including this “meat-hole” dog scene (as the effects guys called it). ---
**Author:** ![Scupper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Scupper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scupper)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/53 "2008-08-20T21:04:26Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] If they pull a manikin apart, with white goop coming out, they don’t give it an “R” rating. When the vampires die in the TV series **Buffy the Vampire Slayer** by dissolving into dust, they can show it in prime time. Because it’s all imaginary, and can’t be mistaken for the real thing. In **The Thing** , the Thing-Dog isn’t even being killed. It splits apart and absorbs the other dogs. It’s part of its made-up life cycle. So the argument **Scupper** makes above is that the movie gets its R rating, in part, because we’re shown — what? Not a dog being torn to bloody bits, but the supposedly natural actions of a creature mimicking a dog that looks kinda like a dof being hurt. Of course, the tentacles and jointed insectoid legs coming out are pretty much a dead giveaway that this isn’t a real dog. So it seems to me that, aside from the hands chopped off and the couple of gunshots (both of which could get edited out), this movie gets an “R” rating simply for looking gross. I’m serious. When they showed this on CBS for the first time in the 1980s they could have just cuit out the hands and gunshot scenes (which they did), but they also cut out almost every other scene of The Thing, including this “meat-hole” dog scene (as the effects guys called it). [/QUOTE] Okay. So, by your reckoning only movies showing actual violence to actual human beings qualifies? The dog-thing _looks_ like a dog til it splits open (horribly) and the dogs that it kills _look_ and sound like real dogs (and are, in fact, played by real dogs for part of the sequence). Sorry, but your “life-cycle” argument doesn’t really hold water for me. The Thing may not die (though I believe it gets burned up with a flame thrower in the same sequence, no?) but the other dogs certainly do. It’s one of the most horrific scenes in any movie I can recall, but, because the thing splitting apart and killing the other dogs is not, itself, a dog, it doesn’t qualify? What does qualify? The chest-burster in Alien apparently doesn’t, because it’s clearly not a real thing, and they obviously didn’t actually kill John Hurt to get the shot. And, really, it’s just a part of the life-cycle of the alien organism, right? The ratings are supposed to give some kind of guidance as to what audience the movie is appropriate for. Are you really suggesting that this movie should have been rated PG? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/54 "2008-08-20T21:20:22Z")
> [@](#): > > The dog-thing looks like a dog til it splits open (horribly) and the dogs that it kills look and sound like real dogs (and are, in fact, played by real dogs for part of the sequence). Sorry, but your “life-cycle” argument doesn’t really hold water for me. The Thing may not die (though I believe it gets burned up with a flame thrower in the same sequence, no?) but the other dogs certainly do. > > It’s one of the most horrific scenes in any movie I can recall, but, because the thing splitting apart and killing the other dogs is not, itself, a dog, it doesn’t qualify? It doesn’t show the other dogs dying horribly – it shows one dog tied up by a tentacle, and another covered by slime. I guarantee that you could show those in a movie and not get an “R” rating. The only thing iobjectionable and horrible in that scene was how gross and bloody the Thing-Dog looked. Mind you, I wouldn’t show it to a child or anything. But the truth is that that movie was excoriated mainly because the alien looked gross and disgusting. Not because the film depicted dogs being killed, and not becauuse it even showed a creature being killed. Just because, despite the spider legs, the tentacles, the white stuff gooshing out, and the fact that it was still moving, the Thing looked too much like a bloody and mutilated dog. Even though it wasn’t, and, to the critical eye, it didn’t really. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/55 "2008-08-20T21:23:59Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] Because it’s all imaginary, and can’t be mistaken for the real thing. [/QUOTE] Always keep in mind that the movie ratings are intended primarily for children, not adults. How does it look to a child? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/56 "2008-08-20T21:50:40Z")
You must’ve posted as I was posting this: > [@](#): > > Mind you, I wouldn’t show it to a child or anything. But the truth is that that movie was excoriated mainly because the alien looked gross and disgusting. ---
**Author:** ![Scupper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Scupper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scupper)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/57 "2008-08-20T21:57:38Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] It doesn’t show the other dogs dying horribly – it shows one dog tied up by a tentacle, and another covered by slime. I guarantee that you could show those in a movie and not get an “R” rating. [/quote] [Here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g5Txe8H6Z4), maybe you haven’t seen it in a while. Please tell me how, at 4:28, the emaciated, dissolving dog that is struggling as it is consumed by the Thing’s tentacles is not dying horribly. Oh, and at 4:38, the dog that is being strangled but still twitching as it is _shot through the chest with a shotgun_ – that’s not horrible and violent? > [@](#): > > Mind you, I wouldn’t show it to a child or anything. Which is why it doesn’t belong in this thread. Not remotely. > [@](#): > > But the truth is that that movie was excoriated mainly because the alien looked gross and disgusting. Not because the film depicted dogs being killed, and not becauuse it even showed a creature being killed. Just because, despite the spider legs, the tentacles, the white stuff gooshing out, and the fact that it was still moving, the Thing looked too much like a bloody and mutilated dog. Even though it wasn’t, and, to the critical eye, it didn’t really. At the time, to a 12-year-old kid, it certainly did. The dog scene is rightly considered one of the most horrific moments in horror cinema history. It is brutal and brilliant, and fucked me up good because I really shouldn’t have seen it. I’m not a fan of gore for gore’s sake, and I don’t believe any moment of this movie can be considered that. It’s gory, it’s horrifying, and it is damn effective. I love **The Thing** , but in this case, the viewing public was perfectly served by an R rating. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/58 "2008-08-20T23:15:27Z")
I enjoyed \*\*Eurotrip’s \*\* 4th wall break when Cooper walks in on our first naked breasts with this line, “There’s your R rating right there.” ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/59 "2008-08-21T06:10:52Z")
[QUOTE=Max Torque] What we really need is an “A” rating for movies that are for adults only, a rating without the stigma associated with “X” and “NC-17”. I doubt it’ll happen, but I can dream. [/QUOTE] Yeah, yeah, Siskel & Ebert have been pushing for that for over 20 years now. I know there were mistakes with the way the NC-17 rating was introduced, but I don’t think it really mattered. Any adults-only rating will be rejected by mainstream advertisers as too controversial. Plus films that would get A-Ratings are non-mainstream, arthouse fair, and they don’t give a shit about them to begin with! And the hardcore “Hollywood is evil” people don’t consider an ‘A’ Rating progress, even if it delineates between sex & violence, because they’d rather roll things back to the Hayes Code (i.e. pure restrictive censorship!) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500/60 "2008-08-21T10:42:23Z")
[QUOTE=Walloon] Anyone want to guess the oldest movie to get an R rating? Hint: it was a 1950s picture that got the rating on its reissue in 1969. [/QUOTE] **A Streetcar Named Desire**. I believe I rated it as the second most important Hollywood film in my 50 Most Important Hollywood Films list. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-ratings-have-been-the-most-incorrect/460500.md?page=4)