The film withstood the test of time and scared the SHIT out of me.
*For those of you who haven't seen JAWS it's about a HUGE shark that eats people...duh!
I screamed out-loud during the film mainly because I'm a pansy and also because PEOPLE WERE BEING EATEN BY A FREAKIN SHARK!
As the credits rolled I felt proud that I sat through a horrifying film and then I saw the film's rating...it's rated PG. PG? So if you're 13 years old it's okay to watch a shark devour people?
How come in US film making violence is ok but sex is not? Everyone on this earth was populated because of sex (well I can't forget the small percentage of people that were procreated via test tubes and egg fertilization-hello dear friends!)
I remember at the age of 17 I snuck into a theater to see Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner's film THE BODYGUARD.
The film is R rated due to its sexual content and deemed not appropriate for people under the age of 18 so my ass and the rest of my body was kicked out of the theater.
I guess if Kevin Costner was eaten by a shark, then I could have remained in my seat and noshed on a big bowl of buttery popcorn. mmmm....popcorn.
10 comments:
oh, now i get it...i've been seeing this bumper sticker among scuba divers which says--"remember when sex was safe,and scuba diving was dangerous?"---hahaha!
When I was growing up in the Netherlands we did not even have movie ratings.
I saw anything and everything I probably wasn't supposed to, and I don't think it has harmed me in any way.
Even now the only ratings we seem to have are either "12" or "16", but the latter is only used for seriously disturbed stuff.
P.S. You are a pansy, Jaws really isn't all that scary ;-)
Are you kidding me? Why did it took you so long to see Jaws? :P
Yes it is very scary :S
there's a really awesome documentary called "this film is not yet rated." it was released in 2006 and was directed by kirby dick. it goes pretty deep into the bullshit that is the american movie ratings board. check it out, i say!
Jaws is to scary! And I'm a woose too. I didn't watch The Exorcist until I was in my 30's and the vcr was around. It took me 3 days to watch it, cause I could only stand it during daylight and everytime it got scary I had to stop it for a couple of hours! THAT was really scary!
I read the book BEFORE the movie...and the book was a bit sexier (definitely more than a PG rating). However, Peter Benchley's second book about the humanoid shark was a tad scarier. I guess he just wanted us to have a fearful respect of the ocean! And your right about all the double standards--ratings are meaningless.
I am in complete agreement with your comments, Bridget... what is it with our country and its love of violence and its problem with human sexuality and nudity?
I have been to Europe many times and found myself watching TV when a commercial comes on and the woman in the ad is nude... no uproar from the Europeans, but in the good ole USA a nipple flash by Janet Jackson and all hell breaks loose.
A recent poll that asked: "As a parent, which would you find most offensive in a video game?" showed the following results...
A graphically severed human head (28%)
A man and woman having sex (37%)
Multiple use of the F-word (10%)
Two men kissing (27%)
WTF?
I feel certain that if asked the same about images on TV and in movies a similar outcome would be seen.
What does it say about our country when parents are more worried that their children see sexuality in any form than "a graphically severed human head"?
(In the interest of accuracy let me cite my source on the above mentioned poll:
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/04/poll-sex-in-gam.html
everyone should just move to canada.
in canada, we educate our youth about sex. safe sex, oral sex, anal sex... you name it, we teach it! we don't care so much about a nipple flash. hell, we're allowed to say "bitch" and "shit" on tv! broadcasters will even let the occasional "fuck" slip through their radar.
anyway. canada's awesome.
i'lljust qoute someone
«If a man is pictured chopping off a woman's breast, it only gets an R rating; but if, God forbid, a man is pictured kissing a woman's breast, it gets an X rating. Why is violence more acceptable than tenderness?» © Sally Ann Struthers
Hah! Nicely done, way to sit through a classic. I mean a little violence is worth it, to contextually get various Jaws jokes now, right?
When I was 14 in a van on my way to camp in the summer, the van broke down. The camp counselors dumped us all off at a movie theater, while one of them went with the van to the shop.
They were just trying to appease a bunch of rowdy pre-teens, so they snuck us into whatever was the next movie which happened to be ROBOCOP.
Fuck. Watching a guy be shot to death enough that he doesn't have any parts left on his body that they have to use metal to put him back together? And the evil guy at the end having his face melted off? Fucked my shit up! Oh, the screaming woman rape scene? Although robocop saved the day and shot the bad guy in the dick. So a little redeeming I suppose.
Anyways, I was traumatized for years. Still hate violence in big movies like that. Violence in classic films to me is OK, because it's like 'research' - required violence for the plot and understanding the characters. Dog Day Afternoon and Bonnie and Clyde and Jaws? I'm cool with that violence. (if a tad freaked) But Friday the 13th? No fucking thank you!
Anyways, thanks for the post!
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