Movies: Rated or Unrated? Does It Really Matter?

Thursday morning is trash day in the neighborhood. The street is lined with numerous overflowing rubbish bins awaiting the trash truck's transport to the local landfill. A common occurrence in America? Absolutely! Well, except, of course, for Hollywood studios. The film clippings from the editing rooms in studios do not make it to the landfill; instead, Hollywood's editing garbage is dumped in your living room and on your computer desk in the form of unrated movies and outtakes used for online movie advertising. What's worse is that Americans seem to be paying to be Hollywood's landfill — one more example of the media influencing the atmosphere of the home. But just how bad does the landfill smell? Decide for yourself.

An explanation of "unrated" films is as follows: In order to achieve the rating desired for a film (typically PG-13, as this rating brings in the most money), film makers will not submit raunchy portions of the film to the MPAA for rating, thus sending a "cleaner" rated version to the theatres. When the movie comes out on DVD, however, the unrated version (with scenes not viewed by the MPAA) is what Hollywood sends to the big name video stores, and the unrated version is ultimately what ends up at the slumber party or adolescent get-together. It should be understood then that by the time a movie is ready to be released as a DVD, its rating has changed.

How much is the film altered, though? Wanting to investigate the answer to that question, I rented the PG-13 and unrated versions of The Date Movie. Interestingly enough, this pair (rated and unrated) was the only one of its kind in the entire video store. All other movies of the same comedic flavor rated PG-13 for their theatrical releases were only available in unrated versions at the video store.

The unrated version of The Date Movie was only two minutes longer than the rated version, which led me to correctly conjecture that one particular scene would be extended. This elongated scene can only be described as soft porn as a skimpy bathing suit clad female rubbed soap all over her body, positioned herself in crude sexual poses, and imitated an ejaculation by spewing milk out of her mouth. There were also specific scenes where the content was more sexually explicit. One example would be the scene mimicking the TV show "The Bachelor." In describing the said "bachelor," the rated version referred to the amount of money he made while the unrated version referred to the size of his genitals. Truly the question of whether The Date Movie should have been made at all requires no amount of thought, but how it could be rated PG-13 in the first place baffles me.

Movies starring teen favorites such as Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller all exhibit a transformation from movie screen to TV screen, as do the unrated horror flicks by which teens love to be shocked and scared. While these films might be sporting a little bit of dirt here and there in the theatres, they are covered head-to-toe in filth by the time they make it to your house. Apparently, Hollywood does not want to sully their theatres, but alas, they have no qualms about defiling the moral sanctity of a home.

If the media stench seems to be emanating from another source other than your TV, check you computer. Movie studios have begun to post deleted scenes in Web ads and on YouTube. For example, Universal Pictures used restricted clips from the R-rated movie Knocked Up to market the film. This new advertising strategy has paid off in lucrative box office revenues. "Weekend Adviser" Sam Schechner of The Wall Street Journal reported that one deleted scene from Knocked Up was viewed at least 493,000 times on YouTube. Mr. Schechner continued by quoting Russell Schwartz, '"It's a little something subversive for the Web audience," says Russell Schwartz, New Line's president of domestic marketing. "They're seeing something they shouldn't be seeing."' What could be more deplorable than a movie executive readily admitting he is providing kids with images they are too young to view? Well, how about Universal Pictures' president of marketing Adam Fogelson worrying that the Web ads may dent the DVD sales of Knocked Up? He is concerned that this type of marketing could provide too many "freebies" to the online audience.

As slimy and greedy as this line of thinking may sound, unfortunately, American households have legitimized Mr. Fogelson's concerns by demanding unrated versions to such a degree that they earn 65 to 90 percent of a movie's total DVD paycheck. I would like to think that many of the movies reflected in that statistic are uncut versions such as The Lord of the Rings movies which have deleted footage due to time constraints, or restored and unedited editions of family favorites such as The Sound of Music. I'm not that delusional, however.

I firmly believe that movie studios offer movies on DVD in the unrated form to continue their efforts to desensitize society so that the standard of moral acceptance will be muddied. Yet parents have the final word. By understanding that the PG-13 rating of today is the R-rating of yesterday and by accepting the responsibility of monitoring media use, parents can keep Hollywood from dumping its garbage at their doorstep and prevent movie studios from polluting the inner sanctum of their home.

*(Note: Referrals to Web sites not produced by Focus on the Family are for informational purposes only and do not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.)

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