Two Classic Movies You Won’t Believe Are Rated PG
Have you ever seen a movie and clicked “info” on your television? Most times you might be looking for the names of the actors or who the director is. You might even be interested in finding out what year it was made.
While I enjoy doing all of these things, sometimes I can’t help but to notice the movie ratings. These are the ratings used when the movies first came out. You’d be amazed at how some movies were not even close to being rated correctly.
There are two that distinctly shoot out at me. When I saw that they were rated PG I could not believe it (rated PG when they came out)……
Jaws
Let’s talk about Jaws for a minute. This is one of the scariest movies in the history of cinema. It’s about a blood thirsty shark that takes on an entire beach town. Not to mention the music and just the way the movie was filmed. It’s creepy, period. There’s enough sexual content for it to be rated PG-13. How about the first scene?The very first scene of the movie has a naked woman swimming and getting brutally attacked by a shark. Plus you see her bush! I mean come on. Now let’s talk about violence. Um, a guy’s leg getting bitten off and falling into the water? How about the end scene when Quint is eaten? Could there be more bloody grossness? How this movie was ever rated PG is beyond me. In today’s ratings? No doubt it would be an R, PG-13 minimum.
*IMDB rates it P3-13 but it’s rated PG
Saturday Night Fever
Oh. My. God. I saw this movie just the other day and when I saw it was rated PG I absolutely could not believe my eyes. If any of you have seen this, man oh man it’s ridiculous. Where do I even start. The amount of times the F-word and the big C word are used is beyond belief. That alone would make this R rated. Now let’s get into racism. Do you realize how many N words, S words, and whatever else is in this film? Definitely a little too much to handle. Finally, sex. There’s one rape scene. That’s bad enough. There’s another potential rape scene. OK, pretty bad too. Then there’s a one night stand scene where there’s two people getting it on in a car, you see the girls breasts, friends are watching through the window and the guy says “I’m waiting for her to cum.” Then you hear her screaming at climax. This movie is rated PG! Yes, PG. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. I really think it might be an NC-17 movie it today’s rating system.
*IMDB rates it R in its parental advisory but the movie is rated PG
There was not a PG-13 rating when Jaws came out. Due to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins also being PG, and the nature of the movies, PG-13 was created.
“Saturday Night Fever” was originally rated R upon its release in 1977. A year later it was recut to get a PG rating, largely to capitalize on John Travolta’s success in “Grease”:
http://www.movieposterdb.com/poster/19f9420c
In fact, the first time I saw it was on a double-bill with “Grease” at a budget house theater at about that time. The PG cut is still pretty rough according to what I remember, but what you describe sounds more like the original R cut.
Saturday Night Fever was not originally rated PG when it came out. It was rated R when it was originally released but because it was such a hit it at the time it was re-cut and re-released in a PG version. The original uncut version is rated R.
I have to say that the most shocking one is Airplane! There is nudity (brief) and all sorts of stuff that is not meant for young children.
Everybody beat me to it lol. One movie that should’ve been on the list instead? Top Gun. This movie is rated PG (and this is 1986, 2 years after pg-13 was invented) and there is so much cursing in this film that as kids, my brother and I joked that they should’ve made Top Gun merchandise. One of which should’ve been a Tom Cruise “Maverick” pull-string doll that only says curses when you pull the string (anyone think we should’ve patented the idea before they made the R. Lee Ermey “Sargeant Hartmann” doll that curses at you?” lol). Ok, sure there’s no f-bombs in Top Gun, but still. I was watching this on AMC last night and with all the editing they do to remove the curses, you’d think this film was rated R.
Hell, that 80’s movie with Kirk Cameron and his father switching places is rated PG and there’s an F-bomb in it. And it was released like in ’88 or ’89.
We just weren’t as uptight of a society back then.
Spaceballs – PG
@Tyson, what are you talking about? If anything we’ve become a much less uptight of a society, to a fault. How many people in 1984 viewed a video of a 28-way by the time they’re 12 years old, compared to 2010? It’s funny how as a society nowadays we are trying censor film and TV more, ban the sale of mature video games and movies to minors, yet at the same time most children have access to the unrestricted, uncensored internet.
It’s a fantasy world were parents think that by not letting their kid be able to walk into a store and buy a mature rate video game that they’re protected, when most of the have an uncensored world viewing screen in the privacy of their own rooms.
how about back to the future?
theres a bunch of swearing, biff tries to rape lorraine, then the other dude at the dance cuts in and molests lorraine, plus marty kisses his mom as well as her constantly trying to get in his pants. disney passed on the movie based on that fact alone, the “approval of incest”.
also in the deleted scenes there is a playboy.
sure its not as bad as the above movies, but its still a bit racy for PG
@tim,
first i think tyson is just relating to movies, not porn. plus porn wasnt as available as it is now, so for these movies to get such a low rating makes it even more crazy (think of the comparison of porn availability to film content back then vs. the same comparison today). because porn wasnt nearly as available back then kids were probably jackin it to the titty scenes in saturday night fever, so its crazy that these movies were ever released with such low parental ratings.
second, he’s talking about the general culture, not bad parenting.
Back in the 70s and 80s porn was more mainstream. Deepthroat was in the top 5 box office the year it came out. I don’t know if society has become more prudish or simply more PC.
I think Monty Python and the Holy Grail is rated PG. Or G. Not completely sure, but that’s pretty big considering it has mentions of oral sex, spanking, and lesbian orgies. And some cursing.
Hi,
Does anyone know where I can get a copy of Saturday Night Fever PG on VHS in the UK?
It is urgent, please help!!
PG-13 didn’t exist back then.
IMO, Jaws isn’t really that scary.