The Censorship Craze

Although this is not my response to any article or even my topic, after today’s class I kept thinking about this movie I saw yesterday about censorship in movies and the MPAA.  The movie is “This Film is Not Yet Rated.”  This is the trailer…

So, along with the discussions about censorship in literature, this movie has many interesting perspectives about what is deemed appropriate for certain viewers to watch, especially for teenagers.  I really don’t want to give away too much from the movie because I feel if you are actually interested in this overall topic, it would be worth it to see the movie rather than read my perception of it.  The movie does a great job of discussing violence in movies versus sex and how sex is restricted more than violent scenes.  When I think about the violence used in film, I wonder if the tables were reversed (sex being less restricted and violence being more — like the film says is the case in Europe) how are culture would be different today.  Not to really go on a rant about the problems in our society but no one can really ignore the fact that the average age for young people to begin sexual activity has lowered dramatically.  Maybe all the restrictiveness that sex is treated with in American culture has become more harmful in our society by causing more curiosity and/or fascination?  I’m not saying that sex should be shown rampantly to young children, but treating sex like something that should be secretive and dangerous may lead children to participate in it more often due to rebellion.  The film also discusses the language in films, which I thought was funny when reading the article in class with “26 G.D.’s” and S.O.B.’s.  The violence issues brought up in the movie are interesting also in which characters can use guns and shoot tons of people (James Bond, etc.) but since there is no blood, only a PG-13 rating gets slapped on it, rather than having young people actually see the horrible outcomes of gun shot wounds like in Saving Private Ryan.  Once again, I am not saying children should be able to watch gruesome death scenes but I do think that what children are allowed to watch and read really do shape their lives, and in turn, our society, but whose to say what exactly children should or should not be exposed to?  And who knows if our culture will ever escape from this dilemma and if we don’t, are things going to continue spiraling downward?  If you have time after reading this (haha if you’re still actually reading it) let me know what you think.