Beowulf... Or: Why The MPAA Fails

It's interesting.

I saw the new movie Beowulf last week. It's was alright. If nothing else it was really pretty and did things with the new digital 3-D process that I have never seen before.

What I find really interesting though is not the movie itself but what I discovered after the film. Let me describe. During this film, there is epic battles that include men getting impaled by stakes, ripped in half, monsters getting brutally eviscerated, naked women and naked men. While I was sitting there, I thought to myself, this is amazing, you never see R rated animations. Well. After the movie I look at my ticket and was genuinely surprised to find that it was in fact rated PG-13.

Let's flash forward to a few days ago. I go and see a movie with my sister. This time it is Hitman. During this film there are brutal battles that include men getting impaled with swords, shot in the face, face stomped and naked women. This movie was rated R.

Both movies have pretty much the same content. Blood, gore, glorified villains and female nudity, but for some reason the MPAA decided that one should be rated tamer then the other. Why is that? Is it because one is a "cartoon" while the other one is live action? Is it because one is "fantasy" while the other one is realistic? Is it simply because one had curse words in it while the other one did not? Let us dispel two of those theories. One: Beowulf, while animated, is not a "cartoon". It was acted live with the actors and then animated with CGI overlays. Plus, Hitman was pretty "cartoon-y" with it's fight scenes. (And acting, but I am not reviewing this here... look for that in the next Geekscape episode.) Two: Sure, Beowulf takes place in the past and has monsters and dragons in it, but to think that Hitman is realistic is farcical. So in the end, does it really just come down to curses? The fact that, since Beowulf was in historical times, before the words FUCK and SHIT were invented, it gets a pass from the MPAA?

This just confuses me. These ratings are meant to keep kiddies from viewing things that could warp their confused and growing minds... but as long as it's animated it's fine? Please don't get me wrong. I am in NO way siding with conservatives that think that any form of violence or sex, really or animated, should be crushed. I personally think that there shouldn't be a rating system at all, and that if the parents are worried about what their little knee-bitters are watching, they should make the decisions themselves and take some responsibility in their parenting. I just don't like seeing hypocrisy. If one movie gets an R, another movie with the same content should get the same rating.

In the end the MPAA is a stupid organization... and if you don't believe me go rent This Film Is Not Yet Rated.