Content in movies nowadays has become more explicit, and that has become more acceptable to the public.
The Motion Picture Association of America seems to have lowered its standard of movie ratings for content that children watch.
According to the National Institute on Media and the Family, an average of 20-25 violent acts are shown in U.S. children’s television programs each hour.
Also, it was almost unheard-of for a man and woman to sleep in the same bed together in the age of I Love Lucy. Now, some movies include almost pornographic scenes.
The film rating system is supposed to be a helpful guide when people are picking a movie to watch with their children.
In the recent release of Alice in Wonderland, which was rated PG, the content was not acceptable for children to watch.
The problem with this movie came when Alice jumped across a moat to get to the castle. However, the objects she jumped on were human heads cut off by the queen and just floating in the moat — an image children should not have inside their heads.
At one showing, most people gasped when this image appeared. One mother put her hands over her daughter’s eyes until the scene was over.
Another troubling part was when the movie clearly showed a dragon’s head chopped off into two pieces. The head then rolls down some stairs and bleeds purple blood.
Children should not watch this kind of material in movie theaters. Many do not know reality from fantasy, let alone right and wrong.
Exposure to media violence is positively related to subsequent aggressive behavior, aggressive ideas, arousal and anger, and a negative effect on helping behavior, according to the institute.
The MPAA should put more care into its ratings decisions, especially in children’s movies. People rely on ratings to watch good movies with their children that will not damage the way they look at the world.
When people make the decision that having human and dragon heads chopped off or jumped on is decent for children to watch, they need to re-evaluate their choice.
