In America, Sex Is Rated R But Excessive Gun Violence Is Just PG-13

According to a study conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center and researchers at Ohio University that was published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, excessive gun violence in films rated PG-13 has more than tripled since that rating was introduced back in 1985. Not only that, in 2012, films rated PG-13 actually contained more violence than the top-grossing R-rated films.

So what's going on, here? Well, in a nutshell, society is kind of okay with violence now, just not nudity. If a movie has boobs it gets rated R. But if your 15-year-old kid wants to watch a bunch of people shoot and beat each other up, that's totally fine.

Of course, you don't need a study to tell you that PG-13 movies are more violent than they used to be. Skyfall, Iron Man 3, The Dark Knight, and even World War Z, which was about the freaking zombie apocalypse, were rate PG-13. Meanwhile, the highest-grossing PG-13 movies in 1990? Yeah, they were Ghost, Dances with Wolves, Kindergarden Cop, and Days of Thunder.

My suggestion? Let's try something new. Let's switch things around and make the nekkid movies PG-13 and the violent ones rated R, then see how that goes for a couple of decades.

[via]