Movie is too religious for MPAA

Movie is too religious for MPAA

Feature films get PG ratings because the Motion Picture Association of America deems that parental guidance is necessary for younger viewers. Their own web site, http://www.filmratings.com, says that the PG rating means:

Some material may not be suitable for children. This signifies that the film rated may contain some material parents might not like to expose to their young children - material that will clearly need to be examined or inquired about before children are allowed to attend the film. Explicit sex scenes and scenes of drug use are absent; nudity, if present, is seen only briefly, horror and violence do not exceed moderate levels.

Here’s the G rating:

This signifies that the film rated contains nothing most parents will consider offensive for even their youngest children to see or hear. Nudity, sex scenes, and scenes of drug use are absent; violence is minimal; snippets of dialogue may go beyond polite conversation but do not go beyond common everyday expressions.

Thus a number of people are left scratching their heads wondering why the MPAA gave a movie produced by a Georgia church a PG-rating for being too religious.

A church-produced film about a school whose losing football team is turned around after the coach turns to God has been slapped with a “PG” rating—for being too religious. ... But after the Motion Picture Association of America rated the film, Kendrick said he was told that it got the ‘Parental Guidance’ rating for being so openly religious. Kendrick said he’s never heard of that criteria before and suggests it shows how much times have changed.

The MPAA’s own site says of the PG-rating for “Facing the Giants”: “Rated PG for some thematic elements.” Read the plot summary at IMDB.com and tell me why this merits a PG rating and not a G. There is no nudity, no sex, no drug use. Violence is apparently limited to football games. In fact, the rating says it is due to the movie’s themes. There was a time when movie ratings helped parents to determine whether a movie was suitable for their kids. Now it looks like it’s being used to advance an agenda, which is that traditional Christian faith is offensive to mainstream Americans.

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