The movie rating PG-13 is celebrating its 25th birthday today. Birthed on July 1, 1984 in response to PG blockbusters pushing the envelope, PG-13 is the middle ground between PG and R where you can have some violence, nudity and drug use if it falls under the descriptions of mild, moderate or minimal - strong language is OK, IF it is minimal.
It's reported that Stephen Spielberg is in part to blame for the rating. Two of his Rated PG blockbuster movies - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as a director and Gremlins as a producer - have raked in more than half a billion dollars but involved violence, occult and cannibalism. He wasn't to blame obviously, but parents became upset at the growing trend that their 11-year-olds were watching these kind of movies and so his proactive recommendation was a PG-14 Rating that would still ensure blockbusters had a large enough audience but protect young minds. This was the early '80s when the most violent video game was probably Atari 2600 Combat with pixelated tanks shooting pixels at other tanks - unless you consider Shadow, Speedy, Bashful and Pokey chasing and killing Pac Man as violent.
The MPAA decided on PG-13 and the rest is history. If only they would have been a year earlier I wouldn't have gotten screwed as a pre-teen into watching Tootsie. My Mom dropped me off at the mall to see The Entity which I was denied access and the only movie playing at the time that I could get into was the PG-rated Tootsie. My pre-teen mind could handle demon molestation, but Dustin Hoffman in a dress, well, that was a confusing time for me. If it would have been PG-13, I would have been denied access to that as well and probably would have waited an extra 30 minutes for the next showing of Pirates of Penzance with Angela Lansbury.
Flamingo Kid was the fiorst movie to get the PG-13 tag, but the first one major movie actually released with it was Red Dawn. Go Wolverines.
Today Is...
- The 182nd day of 2009
- Canada Day
Today Was ...
the day in 1863 when the Battle of Gettysburg kicked off ... the day in 1941 when the first FCC-legal television commercial aired on NBC for Bulova watches ... the day in 1963 when Zip Codes are introduced in the U.S. ... the day in 1985 when Nickelodeon started its Nick at Nite late-night programming with The Donna Reed Show and Dennis the Menace eventually giving way to two of the most sonically challenging shows to fall asleep to Family Matters with Urkel and The Nanny ... the day in 1984 when the PG-13 movie rating was introduced ... the day in 1987 when WFAN in NYC started broadcasting as the first all-sports radio station eventually replacing W-N-BC on the dial ... the day in 1995 when the gravelly-voice legend Wolfman Jack died ... the day in 1997 when the British lost their lease on Hong Kong and returned it back to the landlord, China. | More July 1st events
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