The Influence Of R-Rated Movies On Teens

Watching frightening films such as “It,” Stephen King’s masterpiece, which is engrossing its monumental audience, is a favorite pastime of many young people. This industry is vast and creates a large amount of wealth for many of the people behind it. However, parents should diligently research these films’ psychological effects on minors before allowing their children to engage in this form of entertainment. After all, “‘Given that very young children may not yet know what types of stimuli frighten them most, nor do they enjoy the power to choose which media the family will view, they are in special need of protection from exposure to such scary stimuli before coping strategies are necessary’” (“Scary”). This shows that parents must carefully consider the content they allow their children to see. People watch horror movies for myriad reasons, as shown in Stephen King’s essay “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” and watching these films have both positive and negative effects that parents should be aware of, which are displayed in Stephen King’s essay “Why We Crave Horror Movies” and in the USA Today article “Scary Movies and TV Programs Have Long-Lasting Effects.”

* The use of parental warnings and violence advisories made the programs more of a magnet than they might otherwise have been. Parental Discretion Advised and PG-13 and R ratings significantly increased boys' interest in the shows, although they made girls less interested in watching. (14)

The authors studied the depictions and portrayals of women’s and men’s bodies were more likely to appear in Disney movies as well as other G-rated movies, which was pretty odd for young children. They maintained, “Research cannot address what children take away from their repeated viewings of such movies […] we will need research on what children take away from such media to address these issues” (Martin and Kazyak 2009:319,321). Not to mention, the authors also wondered what social-sexual information would be available to young children as they were watching the G-rated

The MPAA’s movie rating system has been progressively allowing movies to teach children immoral values and something must be done to fix this. The different topics on which the MPAA base their ratings on have skewed standards. One

* For teens, television is a major source of information about sex. A survey conducted in 1997 by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 61 per cent of young teens, ages 13-15, rated entertainment media as their top source of information on sexuality and sex health. This should concern parents because although two-thirds of TV shows contain sexual content, only one in ten includes any reference to safe sex or the consequences of unprotected sex.

It does have some language and behavior meant for a more mature audience. It was rated a go for violence because there is absolutely no violence in it, but a caution for language and some content.

"What Is High?" Blood Pressure : What Is High Blood Pressure? N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2016.

The rating system also ignores the fact that the age divisions are wide-ranging. The different age divisions are ages 0-13, 13-17, over 17, and over 18. The main concern is the group of kids aged 0-13. The problem with this is a four-year-old and a twelve-year-old would react in different ways to a movie because “younger children attribute life and realism to any character that looks real” while older children are more mature and

The Kaiser Family Foundation (2010) reported that teenagers rank entertainment media as a key source of information about sexuality and sexual health. The target audience for music television ranges in age from 12 to 34, and sexual imagery in music videos has increased over the years. On a daily basis, 65% of adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18 listen to hip-hop over any other

Ross, Jeremy, and A. Kimball. "Lord of the Flies Background." Lord of the Flies Background. N.p., 8 Dec. 2006. Web. 13 Dec. 2014.

The ESRB issues more than one thousand ratings per year. Five percent of those games are considered to contain mature content (Clements, 2012). Additionally, only an estimated eighteen percent of games sold, throughout the year, are designated with mature ratings (Clements, 2012). This low percentage could impact the reasons why legislation has not taken action against mature content published within video games. Research has proven individuals younger than seventeen are typically unsuccessfully able to purchase video games designated with a mature rating (Clements, 2012). Additionally, those under the age of seventeen typically receive the mature rated game as a gift from a legal guardian or a friend, which bypasses the guidelines set forth by the ESRB.

Sexuality and sex in America is a complicated subject in that there is little consensus on the topic of sex in, and the American media sends many mixed messages regarding sex and sexuality to everyone, not just to adolescents. Americans are aware of sex primarily through advertising (print media, commercials, etc.) as sex is used to sell anything and everything. The media also bombards Americans with sexuality and sex on television and in films. The sexuality of teenagers is not a straightforward issue in America either. Many parents do not discuss sex or sexuality with their children. There have been ongoing debates as to whether sexuality should be taught as part of school curricula because there are such a great deal of adolescents participating in reckless and/or dangerous sexual behaviors, largely because they are grossly uneducated about sex. The paper will reference the film Juno and other texts as a meditation on the relationship between adolescent sexuality and the media.

If “seeing is believing”, then how youth is represented in popular films is all true, right? Partying hard, drugs, promiscuity and sour attitude – wrong! The problem is not the unacceptable and risky behaviour, because it only applies to a minority. The real issue is that the way teens are represented on movie screens is unrealistic and over-dramatized which benefits film makers, not the reputation of teens. Right now all we’re seeing are the fictional teens and the false realities that seem to be attached to our popular films.

Television is a big part of today’s society. Everybody watches television, including the children. There is a potential problem with letting children watch television. Ask this question, would someone let their own child watch some of the programming that they watch, too? Some of these programs are intended for the adult generation, not young children. Violence has a major role in television these days. Letting children watch this violence could corrupt their minds and eventually lead to bad behavior. There needs to be a limitation on the types of television programming that parents let their children watch, because violence in television can negatively affect children.

In order to establish a group that censors televisions and movies, the Motion Picture Producers Association (MPAA) was created. Each rating category has a description of the appropriate age at which to view the film and whether or not a parent’s accompaniment is necessary. The Motion Picture Producers Association assesses a film and gives it a rating of G (general audiences), PG (parental guidance suggested), PG-13 (parents strongly cautioned), R (restricted), or NC-17 (no one under seventeen admitted). As the film industry has been changing over time, so have the ratings. More and more parents are having issues with the ratings that some films are issued. “The man behind the ratings, Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), says the system works just fine. ‘Parents use it and trust it, and that's why it's lasted for almost 35 years,’ Valenti says. ‘It warns parents in advance about what's in a particular movie, but ultimately, parents are responsible for the behavior and conduct of their children — not the ratings system’ (Hansen 273).”