Many in Hollywood are up in arms over the decision by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to give an “R” rating to the romantic comedy It’s Complicated. The decision had nothing to do with scenes of sex or violence in the film starring Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. Rather, the R rating was applied because of a scene showing two characters smoking marijuana. According to the MPAA, the act of getting stoned without consequences for the characters on screen was too much to give the movie a PG-13 rating.
The ruling has outraged those in the industry who disagree with the MPAA’s habit of awarding violent films, like
Terminator: Salvation a PG-13, while
branding It’s Complicated with the harsher R rating.
“It’s another outrageous example of the lunatic priorities of the MPAA, which claims to serve the interests of parents but actually dances to its crazy drummer, happily handing out PG-13 ratings to unbelievably violent movies like Terminator: Salvation while whipping out the R rating at the first sign of a few naked breasts or, God forbid, an unsheathed penis,” wrote Patrick Goldstein in the Los Angeles Times.
Examples cited by other critics of the MPAA include Woody Allen’s PG-13
Crimes and Misdemeanors, in which a man has his mistress murdered with no bad consequences, and the PG comedy
9 to 5, which shows Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin getting high without consequences.
-Noel Brinkerhoff