The MPAA does in fact keep corruption out a good bit. Think what would happen if we had no ratings. A parent sits down to watch a movie with their kids having no idea if it will be a fun family movie or a swearing inappropriate movie. In fact, while you are saying they give movies PG when they should be G, I'm over here saying that some PG should really be PG-13.
When it comes to that sort of thing, it's all about clout. The bigger the name you are in Hollywood, the more you can get away with things.
Here's a tale of two PG movies... Kevin Munroe's TMNT and the Wachowski Brothers' Speed Racer film. Both released by Warner Bros, by the way. TMNT's violence was no more than anything you'd see on a TV Y7 kid's program, no one said anything close to a cuss word (unlike the live action film which was much more violent and had Raph sweating every five seconds in the first 10 minutes which ALSO had a PG rating), and quite honestly, it seemed that the problem
was that they couldn't amp up the violence to a near action movie level out of fear they'd get a PG-13 and lose all Happy Meal licensing privileges.
Meanwhile, Speed Racer, because the Wachowski Brothers have clout, had a LOT of cussing, mildly bloody violence, and Spritle even flips someone off at one point. You can't even flip someone off on Family Guy! And I SWEAR to you, it's all PG. And I swear that leans closer to PG-13 than TMNT ever did.
I'd say Pirates and Rango and Shrek are what I'd consider PG.
I saw R-rated movies when I was a child. I was never censored as to what I could see on TV. And to this day my friends think I'm far too wholesome a person, lol. They apologize if they curse around me, lol. I knew it was just a movie, just entertainment, and I knew my parents wouldn't tolerate my imitating the wrong things.
The first R-rated movie I've ever seen was The Birdcage. There is nothing R about it, other than the F word used like a couple times. Unless the whole main characters being gay thing was worthy of an R... but when the gay couple is Robin Williams and Nathan Lane,
no one in the world wants to see it go over kissing on the cheek.
How many times have I said it? The public ALWAYS looks to the media for guidance anymore, and what is the entertainment industry polluted with? All the things that have contributed to the moral decay in our society, especially sex; everytime you turn on TV anymore, what do you see? Reckless, selfish, irresponsible, and immoral sexual behavior... and we wonder why we have such problems with teenaged pregnancies and
b@$+@rd children, because people think it's okay to just engage in sexual activities anywhere, anytime, with anyone, under any circumstances, without any consequences... then they're faced with the consequences and don't know what to do about it because, gee, they didn't have consequences on TV or in the movies. Then, of course, like with the swearing issue, there are some people out there who encourage this kind of stuff, like someone once said about
Don't Trust the B---- in Apt. 23, "Sex is a part of life, and sitcoms are about life, if sitcoms were about married couples having sex, they would be boring."
Sex is funny because we put such an insane amount of taboo on the subject. The only country that doesn't look at us and laugh about how prudish we are has to be in the Middle East somewhere. Yes... there is something about saving it for marriage, but that isn't for everyone. Not everyone wants to get married, and not everyone is marriage material. Sex with multiple partners
can happen in a marriage too.
But for every movie and TV show where everyone boinks each other and there are no consequences, there's always something out there that actually
deals with those consequences. The movie Knocked Up for example... or better yet, Raising Hope. The show where someone willfully takes care of a baby he helped create, who was the spawn of a teenage pregnancy. That show is all about taking responsibility for those actions.
Still... There
is a reason why certain shows come on at 9:00 and 10:00. I agree there's too much of that stuff (particularly in dramas), but if we put the cat back in the bag, people will start to notice and not be too happy about it. Full grown adults
know what they're talking about... I'm sure kids don't want to watch Grey's Anatomy anyway... especially if they get Cartoon Network and Disney. They'd just watch that stuff like they're
supposed to.
But then again, like I said... I grew up watching the UNcensored Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry cartoons with the racist stuff in tact. And while I'm glad they're long gone from the official kid's broadcast of them, it didn't affect me any way either.