Raging for the man

Apparently I'm on a rage in favor of the man. Earlier today I was defending ATM fees (which I don't enjoy at all, but can still justify from a market perspective) and now, I have a justification for the MPAA's apparently bizarre rating system rules. It's been well documented that sex will earn a much harder rating than violence, and this is something I've heard railed against on the grounds that it would be better for kids to see sex than violence, because sex is something they will experience in their life, but hopefully they can be protected from and then avoid the kind of violence found in R-rated movies.

It just hit me that that is the entire point: when it comes to movies, sex is real but violence is not. As gruesome as the alien leaping out of a man's chest or eating his head might be, or as bloody as Jason murdering a house full of kids with his chain saw, that just doesn't happen. Sure, it should be Restricted so that impressionable youngsters aren't freaked out by it, but as long as daddy is sitting there to reassure Susie that Jason won't climb in her window and dismember her while she sleeps, no real harm done. The more violence in a movie, no matter how graphic, the more fantastic and unbelievable the movie seems.

Sex, on the other hand, is different. The more sex a movie has, the more real it becomes. Two people meeting at a bar and going back to an apartment for a weekend of passionate, inventive loving is believable. Which makes it much more uncomfortable for parents. And in the end, as horrible and misguided and misconstrued as it might be, the current rating system is entirely for parents. They know that if they take their kid to that R rated movie, the kid might see lots of violently produced blood, and the kid might see lots of boobs, but the kid will not see anything other than face to face sex, with no indication that anything "kinky" is happening.

Because that would be awkward.