Well, this didn’t really happen today, but rather, at least one month ago, when I saw The Secret Life of Pets 2.
I know for a fact that it was rated PG for “some action and rude humor,” but I never expected Pops (voiced by Dana Carvey) to say “Pickles is p***ed.” I was literally stunned and gut-punched as soon as I heard it.
WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!? Do they not know there are many euphemisms for “mad”? If you’re going to bill a movie as a family movie, try to steer clear of words worse than h3ll, d4mn, and cr@p. A-double-S isn’t much of a big deal as long as it’s used for “donkey” and/or “fool” and not as a term for rear end or as some kind of adjective enhancer. I know The Lorax was rated PG for “brief mild language,” which was barely audible. I also remember seeing the P-word on screen when I was playing Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, which noted “language” as one of the components in the rating box. And let’s not forget that after the first season of Regular Show, which had Rigby saying the P-word once and Mordecai saying it twice in total (as far as I know), they dispensed with the use of that word, most likely because the RS staff knew they were also targeting the younger audience and not just the adults.
If Dana had said “peeved” or “ticked” or if the line had been removed altogether, I wouldn’t have second thoughts about the sequel. Unless George Carlin meant to list 6 dirty words and not 7, I cannot consider “p***ed” to be family-friendly. If Illumination Entertainment can get away with it, I’d hate to think what other language worse than H, D, and C they (and some other animation studios) could throw in their future films.