As I was trying to think of a good blog post for the "Convince Me" theme, I started thinking about Disney movies. Whenever people think of Disney, they think about children watching G-rated movies like Cinderella and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. However, sometimes movies that are rated G or PG are actually scary for young children. Movies like Mulan and Beauty and the Beast (Both rated G) have moments in them that could be quite frightening for young kids. Mulan is all about a war where people are dying and Beauty and the Beast has moments with a beast and a man who is trying to kill the beast. Concepts like death and war don't seem like good topics for an audience of little kids.
Of course, it is always the decision of the parent to allow their kids to watch movies with specific ratings, but in my personal opinion, I believe that not all ratings for Disney movies are actually correct. I'm not saying that it's a bad idea for children to watch The Little Mermaid and Emperor's New Groove. No, these are the movies that I grew up on along with many other kids. What I'm saying is that these movies should be more realistically rated, instead of being skewed to the lighter rating of things.
Example A: Spirited Away. I'm not sure how many people remember this Disney movie or have seen it, but I remember it very vividly. When I was little, I saw this movie. It is rated PG, but I would personally give it a rating between PG and PG-13. The movie is all about spirits and humans being turned into animals. What I remember the most though is the spirit that everyone in the movie was scared of: the spirit that ate other spirits. There were scenes with this particular spirit that gave me chills! Of course, I was less than six years old, but still, this PG movie seemed like a horror movie to me at the time!
Example B: The Princess and the Frog. The first time I saw this movie, I was amazed that it was rated G. The villain in this movie is influenced by evil spirits that go after the main characters, the princess's firefly friend dies, and in the end the villain is sucked through a strange gate because he sold his soul for magic. This is probably the darkest disney movie I've ever seen, and even my mom agreed with me that it was strange that The Princess and the Frog wouldn't at least be rated PG. If I was under ten years old, I would have had nightmares.
So, the main point of my argument is that not all movies can really be judged by their ratings. I've even see movies rated R that have less violence in them than a movie rated PG-13! You never truly know what you're getting into until you have seen the movie. That's the most reliable way to discover how violent a story is. Once you see the movie itself, you can form your own rating!
Actually, I was pretty creeped out by Princess and the Frog. It was the final scene with the villain that you mentioned, and the spirits pulled his soul into what we can assume is some sort of purgatory, and in addition to the creepy music and the chanting voodoo dolls, I can say that I would have had nightmares as a kid.
ReplyDeleteI know, right? It amazes me that kids are allowed to watch those scenes! I first saw it about two years ago and I was freaked out by that part and extremely confused as to why it was in a Disney movie...
ReplyDeleteIt's really interesting to see what the social norm of media is. We show so many things that aren't truly meant for children in children's movies. Sometimes this may be for the adults, who have to watch the movie with their kids in the theatre. Media wants to be interesting to all audiences, so they in turn make parts in movies, like you said about Spirited Away and the Princess and the Frog, scarier to make the adults interested in the movie(to a certain extent) as well. It's really interesting to see on what basis the government gives the ratings it gives for certain movies. R, PG, G, NC-17, NR, it all seems really irrelevant in the cases of some movies. The themes and topics behind some movies aren't really able to be judged accurately by our movie rating system.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I really love the themes and ideas presented by Spirited Away. Actually, because of that, it's one of my favorite movies. Glad to see nobody else was creeped out by that scene when they were younger.
When I saw Spirited Away, it was pretty scary, which made me want to watch it even more. I feel like this happens to younger kids a lot too. They watch a movie that they find scary and then they want to watch it again just for the thrill of being scared. In a way, scary Disney Movies can seem like horror movies to certain audiences. I also agree with you that some of the content was put in these movies with the adults in mind. It makes sense, since most adults tend to watch things with their children. Thank you for the comment! :)
ReplyDeleteSpirited Away is not a Disney movie, it is a movie by Studio Ghibli from Japan.
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