Earlier today I read an article at Twitchfilm.com that posed an argument regarding the practicality of the PG-13 movie rating.
In this article, author Todd Brown argued against the PG-13 rating, citing that he felt that these days, 26 years removed from it’s inception; Hollywood rarely produces films targeting the 10-13 year old age group, instead opting to focus on the more profitable age groups a few years North and South of it.
Said article can be found HERE.
Truth be told, I found that I agreed with pretty much everything Mr. Brown had to say.
While I can’t say I pay that much attention to the PG and PG-13 releases these days, I’ve always felt that; in general, there seems to be a distinct lack of films targeted at young people that don’t succumb to the “low” tactic of talking down to their audience.
Even as a kid, I always loved Hayao Miyazaki’s Tonari No Totoro for exactly this reason, as despite it’s inherently childish elements; there were also genuinely scary moments from time to time, as well as some seriously complex and realistic events unfolding in the stories’ periphery.
The movie was by no means a PG-13 film, but it was the first movie that came to mind on the subject of “not talking down to kids,” so I decided to run with it.
… Sorry about that, been a long day.
Anyway, the real reason for this post, was simply that I wanted to share this article with all of you, as I found it quite interesting.
Filed under: Movies, Uncategorized, anime, debate, film, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, Japanese, movie, PG, PG-13, rating, Steven Spielberg, Studio Ghibli, Todd Brown, Totoro, Twitch
Azn Badger's Blog 
It does seem that movies are made for older audiences,children movies nowdays are so immature and teach children nothing.It bothers me.
Foh’ real man. I agree that kid’s movies benefit from possessing a certain degree of color or “fun,” but that doesn’t mean they have to be DUMB. Thank God for Pixar and Ghibli…
I think one of the main problems stems from directors/producers targeting a rating BEFORE a word of script gets typed. Every time I hear a movie announcement where they release a minuscule amount of info but gab about what the rating’s going to be, I want to cringe (though I’m unfortunately used to it now). I’m fine with the existence of PG-13, but the content should be determining the rating, not the other way around…
Couldn’t agree with you more. I kind of like the idea of an in-between rating separating PG and R, but it’d be nice to see “younger” PG-13 movies that actually target the age group of it’s namesake as opposed to the slightly older teenagers with disposable income.
Bit late commenting here, but I agree that the movie should come before the rating, and Totoro was my first Japanese-animation I saw and still one of my very favorite movies (saw it in theaters over here). Perhaps with so many ‘kids’ movies talking down to their audience that’s where I should be focusing my attention for breaking into the industry. Not very good competition.