Consider for a moment the film “The Hunger Games,” a popular film whose sequel, “Catching Fire,” comes out in theaters Nov. 22.
It’s a thrilling ride through a deadly tournament, in which the participants kill each other through whatever means they can muster, be it a strike of a blade, a shot of an arrow or the typical beehive-falling-on-the-enemy’s-head gag.
The film, indisputably violent, received a rating of PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America.
Now imagine the heroine, Katniss Everdeen, dropping a few F-bombs amidst her troubles to stay alive: “My friend Rue just got hit with a javelin. F-ck.”
Or imagine her tattered shirt ripped while she was scaling a tree and she suffered a Janet Jackson-esque nipple slip.
Either of those incidents likely would have resulted in the movie receiving an R rating.
A recent study, published in the “Pediatrics” journal, found that violence in movies has more than doubled since the 1950s and, more interestingly, violence and guns are now more prevalent in PG-13 films than in R-rated films.
Such seems to be the tone of our nation.
Killing, violence and guns hold a place in everyday life. People talk about it, watch it on TV and see it glamorized in popular media. It’s almost natural. We’ve become almost jaded when talking about mass shootings.
Sex and explicit language, on the other hand, are often taboo. The body is blurred and the F-word bleeped, as though sex and speech are grave curses to be purged from the good American people.
I don’t intend to suggest that violence is necessarily bad to see and should therefore be censored, nor do I think that seeing violence in the media results in people who are more violent — I enjoy “Grand Theft Auto V” as much as the next person, but it doesn’t make me want to run over pedestrians. I simply don’t understand the infatuation with violence and the irrational fear of sex and cursing.
The MPAA rating system is meant to inform viewers and parents about a film’s potential content. According to the MPAA, a PG-13 rating means there is the presence of violence, nudity and adult language or activities.
An R rating is similar, but the degree of sex and language is more explicit. Any more than a single expletive could result in a film’s rating being bumped to an R.
Violence in a film, however, must be exaggerated and persistent for the movie to receive an R rating, something like Kill Bill, where blood is constantly spewing from amputated limbs.
It is entirely backward that people feel more comfortable witnessing violence and cruelty than sex or expressive language.
At what point did people begin seeing the human body as a shameful secret, and, likewise, when did gore and killings begin to feel natural?
Reach the columnist at kwrenick@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @kwrenick.
