Why are USA age ratings so much more lenient than in the UK?

[towelseverywhereohno]

Just random thoughts here, but my 8yo wants to watch a horror. So I googled 12a scary movies to see if I could find any that are age appropriate. I was expecting things like monster house and coralline, only to find that in the USA films like the ring, the grudge, insidious and a quiet place are all pg-13s. Any Americans here? Do kids actually watch these kind of movies from age 13 (or even younger)? I was scared of my dad in a mask when I was 13 let alone a demon climbing out of my TV!

You're asking a country that thinks it's ok to take a gun to the supermarket. The horror of real life is worse than the films.

I'm just interested to know if people actually take their kids to these movies, or if it's not acceptable and people just use their common sense. Am curious. My son would be terrified if I took him to see some of them.

^^ This

There are fewer classifications in the US. We have 12, 12A, 15 and 18; whereas they have PG-13 and R. The US is more concerned about sexual content and swearing and less focused on graphic violence. Under 18s are allowed into R-rated films with an adult and the MPAA system is advisory (although most cinemas stick to it).

I think it’s more left to families to control what their teens/children watch.

Not American but I live in the US. It’s simply because they place more of the responsibility on parents. Their mindset is that parents should be clued up enough to make the decisions for their children and what sort of media they consume with minimal input from the government. So there’s a guideline, but culturally an expectation that parents will enforce their own rules based on their own standards.

Ours are fine. I think most parents will be aware of age appropriate films.

That's interesting. I'm very glad cinemas are strict here about age ratings!

Can I ask if you know whether parents actually stick to it? I can think of a few people i know who would 100% take their kids to 15s if they could! (Similarly to that one friend we probably all had where we could go to their house and watch things we probably shouldn't have watched!)

Like most things, there will be both a commercial and a cultural aspect to this. An 18 film in the USA is (I understand) considered a box-office death wish. The potential audience is smaller if under 18s are ruled out, and the idea is that parents have more freedom to judge what's suitable for their children.

In the UK, an 18 rating is a signifier that the film contains the kind of strong content some viewers want in horror or sex films, so it's not something film makers will go out of their way to avoid if they're producing that kind of content.

Yes when it comes to violence, but I think that’s less true about sex and particularly any sex that doesn’t centre straight male experience/perspective. The Kirby Dick documentary ‘This Film Is Not Yet Rated’ offered some interesting insights about the double standard, and although it’s 20 years old now I would guess at least some of it still holds true.

Aside from R and above, the US ratings are just suggestions. Absolutely nothing stops a child under 13 from walking into a PG-13 movie without an adult unless the theater has a policy on unaccompanied minors. Parents are expected to make the decision themselves, based on their child and the particular content.

They cam watch a violent film as a young teen but not buy a can of beer until 21.

Its a different planet.

The ratings in Germany are bizarre and almost the opposite of the way the US ones skew, they will rate very strictly for any kind of violence at all, even cartoonish slapstick type violence, but language, nudity and even sexual content they are extremely lax on, and sometimes there are themes in lower-age rated films which are much more mature and I would have expected to have a higher rating. They have some kind of way of deciding whether a sex scene is appropriate for children (!!!!) or not which is so completely alien to me.

I suppose the UK ratings just make the most sense to me as they are what I grew up with. But different cultures have different things they see as important for child protection.

They aren't uniformly less strict.

They're casual about violence, but The King's Speech (a 12 in the UK) is "R' (17+) in the US (swear words).

Interesting example which proves my theory, I just checked and the German rating is indeed 0

I like reading assessment comments on the BBFC website in that film, and they specifically allowed the swearing at '12' because it was 'in a speech therapy context'.

I suppose the rationale makes sense, a 12 year old won't be a stranger to the word 'fuck' after all!

Just come to mind is the following quote about US's certification approach, from the South Park movie:

"Remember what the MPAA says: Horrific, deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say any naughty words!"

When I was a kid, they had 12, not 12A, but now it's a bit more like America in that parents decide. They seem more bothered about language. But then, it seems crazy that you can't take teens to see certain films, yet some parents let those teens go online/social media and see stuff far worse, and put themselves at much more risk than seeing a 15 with a parent could possibly be.
But ratings change as well-older films that were U have gone up, and movies where the good guys smoke get warnings!