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Why Mess Up a Great Film?

 Because I wear a “film critic” hat here at Plugged In, last year I watched 147 movies. In 2011, I caught 151; in 2010 it was 137. Walking out of a film screening can, at times, be as interesting as the film itself. As you know, people like to talk about the flicks they’ve seen—especially as they exit a theater. But one conversation I’ve never overheard is this one: “Y’know, this would have really been a great film if only it had had more f-bombs.” Or this: “I enjoyed it to a point, but I really wish the actors would have misused Jesus’ name more.”

I mention this because Hollywood writers and directors seem to operate as if this discussion happens every single day. However, I tend to believe that most of the American film-going public is not pushing for profanities, vulgarities, sexual crassness, blasphemous exclamations and the like. So, why then does nearly every film PG-13 and above contain ’em (and a lot of PGs)? I think it occurs because it occurs. In other words, most Hollywood writers feel that’s just how people talk. And so that sort of language is just expected in their movies.

The reason I’m writing this blog is because the movie Identity Thief is on my mind. Last week, the film was No. 1 at the box office with $34.6 million. This week, it nearly was No. 1 again with another $27.5 million (A Good Day to Die Hard barely beat it). And unlike a lot of R-rated films, this one has a lot going for it. It’s got a warm heart and a feel-good ending and several people to root for. It underscores the importance of family and the ability of people to change for the better. The film encourages us to love the unlovely, even making a subtle statement that some folks face major challenges in life, at least in part, because of abandonment issues from their childhood. In other words, the film was very Focus on the Family…at its core.

But the director took a film that could have easily been written and directed to receive a PG rating and just added lots and lots and lots of eech! Thief contains more than 40 f-bombs, a half dozen misuses of Jesus’ name, a very sleazy sex scene and plenty of risqué dialogue. It’s a hard-R movie and didn’t have to be at all.

I’m totally aware that most Hollywood execs would view me as “narrow minded.” They’d wonder why I even care about such things. So, setting aside the fact that these movie moguls are ignoring a lot of research, such as a recent study showing that film influences sexual behaviors (see our Culture Clip of it here), let’s discuss something briefly that Hollywood does care about: money.

If you look at the list of Top 10 grossing films for each year in the past decade, you’ll notice something quite interesting: R-rated films are scarce, even non-existent some years (and one is The Passion of the Christ). I don’t pretend to understand what goes on in the minds of Hollywood writers and directors, but, historically, it just doesn’t make sense—even financial sense—to insist on going after the R rating.

So, if scaling back on the sleaze and language has historically proven to be better for Hollywood’s pocketbook, I have to wonder if Identity Thief wouldn’t have made $50 million if the director had gone after a PG-13 or PG. While there’s no way to know for sure, again I have to look at what’s worked in the past. And it’s films with PG-13, PG and G ratings. Why not throw out the welcome mat for families?