PG-13, Ratings Creep, and the Legacy of Screen Violence: The MPAA Responds to the FTC’s “Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children” (2000–2009)

A Systemic Functional Linguistic Analysis of Teen Dialogue in Teen Films of Different Ratings

“…Meanwhile, the second study qualitatively reveals how The Lord of the Rings films earned PG-13 ratings for violence compared to more graphic images used by R-rated films (Afra, 2016). These studies are valuable to help explain both what audiences think about a film and perhaps why they would have this impression.…”

“…Their model was more successful than previous prediction models at identifying a film's rating, particularly at predicting R and PG-13 films than PG and G (Shafaei et al, 2020). This finding is less surprising given the fact that any instance of a profane word would automatically garner a film at least a PG-13 rating (Afra, 2016). Studies using prediction models may raise an important economical point of anticipating a rating early on in the production process.…”

“…This would be a large quantity of information to analyze, but may help ensure that CARA raters are accurately reflecting parents' beliefs for ratings. Meanwhile, Afra's (2016) Some studies have also questioned the appropriateness of ratings for the particular age group that is permitted to watch certain films. Shafaei et al (2020) use a corpus of over 5,500 film scripts and a rating predictability model to predict the films' ratings, based on word context, emotions, genres, and similarities to other films.…”

“…The PG and PG-13 ratings were decided upon as these ratings are accessible to younger audiences who may witness characters close to their age behaving on screen. Some research has explored the distinction between the unrestricted PG-13 and restricted R ratings (Afra, 2016;Leone & Houle, 2006), although less attention has been exclusively paid to PG and PG-13 distinctions.…”