In the film industry, there are 5 ratings: G – all ages admitted, PG – parental guidance suggested, PG-13 – Parents strongly cautioned for children under 13, R – Restricted and anyone under 17 needs to be accompanied by an adult, and lastly, NC-17, where no one under 18 is admitted, whatsoever.

Back in the day, the ratings were different. For instance, PG-13 didn’t exist until 1984. So, many mature movies before were rated PG.

Nowadays, PG is pretty much the same as G, or even PG-13, as of the late 2010s.

But many family-friendly movies are rated PG. In fact, when I was little, I thought PG meant it was for all ages.

Some people, however, still see PG as inappropriate and only allow their children to watch movies that are rated G. In fact, back in the 00’s, my youngest brother’s 1^st grade class was only allowed to watch G-rated movies. PG was forbidden, including those geared toward kids, such as Shrek 2.

Seriously—they couldn’t watch Shrek 2 because it was rated PG. Crazy, huh? My dad actually supported the teacher restricting to just G.

Yeah, back in the 70’s, it would’ve made sense as PG-rated movies then were usually for adults, such as Jaws or Airplanes. I would understand not allowing little kids to watch PG-rated films when it comes to those like Jaws.

But Shrek 2? That’s ridiculous. That’s like not allowing kids to feed themselves or wash their hands by themselves.

Anyway, while the PG rating varies per movie these days, I want to focus on the other ratings, too.

G is not as common these days. One movie I feel is too dark to be rated G is Muppets Treasure Island. At nine years old, I was a bit scared at times when watching that film. PG probably would’ve been more appropriate.

Anyway, fewer movies these days are rated G. NC-17 seems to be the least common rating and is usually used for the most extreme.

However, it can also be if there are at least 400 curse words. That was the case with 1999’s The South Park Movie. It was originally going to be NC-17 due to a ton of foul language. In fact, only one swear word was removed so that it could be rated R instead.

Honestly, there are plenty of dirty words that could’ve been removed from that film. But not enough to lower the rating to PG-13.

Anyway, I am glad that the rating for The South Park Movie was lowered to R. To me, the film is waayy to mild for the NC-17 rating. There are PG-13 movies scarier and more intense than that.

Also, many South Park fans are underage, so it would’ve been unfair to them had they stuck with rating it NC-17.

Sometimes, PG-13-rated movies are so scary or intense, their ratings are raised to R. There was talk for raising the PG-13 rating to R for The Hobbit: Part 3 film due to a ton of battle violence. I have no problem with that. Plus, it’s not the first time a movie’s PG-13 rating has been bumped up to R.

So, those are my thoughts on film ratings. There’s also a video on YouTube called “Does PG Really Mean Anything” that you can search for. I’m not the only person who noticed certain details and movies and their ratings.