R-Rated: Means no kids allowed

I am a big movie buff and I have been for as long as I can remember. I think it’s important for every age group to enjoy movies and appreciate the value of good films. Having said that, there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed, one of them being parents taking their little children into violent R-rated movies, and despite it being a very poor decision I see people doing it all the time.

A perfect example of this is when I saw a couple taking their young, couldn’t be more than 3 year old daughter into The Hills Have Eyes 2. As soon as I saw that all the warning bells in my head went off. I saw the first one myself and could easily imagine how much worse the second one would be and yet here are parents taking their little daughter to see the vicious cannibals. I’m not a parent myself so I don’t claim to know everything regarding parenting. But I do know that unless you want your child to be traumatized for life you don’ take them into that kind of movie. The entire film is screaming, cursing and flesh eating cannibals and this little girl is going to see it all. I don’t care how bad you want to see the movie, you wait until you can get a babysitter or you don’t go. It’s simple. When you have a child their needs come before yours and what that child needs is to be spared from those images and sounds, you may not think so but it will be with them for the rest of their lives.

It isn’t just the children that are affected, but it’s the rest of the adults in that movie theater. Granted the adults won’t be traumatized for life just severely annoyed but still. The adults that see these movies go into them thinking “R rated movie I will be able to enjoy it without any little kids screaming and crying.” It is something they look forward to after putting up with it in the rest of the movies rated PG-13 and below. They know they run the risk of having little kids in the theater when they see a lower rated show so that’s one thing. But R-rated movies are supposed to be just for the adults, an escape, a place where they can watch a movie in silence and yet here are little kids crying and screaming throughout, ruining the movie for everyone in the theater including the parents who brought them in the first place.

It’s very simple really, the children should not be watching these movies to begin with and the adults don’t want screaming kids in there. The parents, for whatever unknown reason, aren’t wising up and not bringing their kids where they shouldn’t be. So that leaves it up to the movie theaters. The theaters should have a rule; no one under a certain age allowed into a R-rated movie. As it is now if you’re under aged you can go to a R-rated movie as long as you’re with an adult. For someone in their teens that’s fine but they have to draw a line and say these little kids aren’t allowed into R-rated movies no matter what. This is more out of concern for the kids being forced to watch that violence and learn those curse words before they are ready than the adults that are simply being annoyed. Either way you spin it, the kids don’t want to watch that and the adults don’t want them in there. So either shape up and be a better parent by not forcing your kids that you love to go through that or the theaters need to step in and change things.