Out of Context

Thanks to Regal Cinemas, we've had the opportunity to go to a few free kid movies this summer. Every Tuesday and Wednesday, our local Regal shows a G rated and a PG rated movie for free - of course we buy popcorn because what's a movie without popcorn, but other than that it's gratis. This is great because we aren't yet eager to pay money to take Camille to a movie. She's still so young and there is no guarantee she'll want to stick around long enough to make it worthwhile. But when it's free? Bring it on!

I'm generally not concerned about G rated movies, but for the PG rated ones I am curious why they didn't get a G rating. What was it about them that required parental guidance, and would the movie be suitable for Camille? She has been known to get upset about creatures in distress or peril, and is also quite the parrot so I don't want her repeating anything foul.

Fortunately, there is a website dedicated to explaining the reasons behind the ratings for many, many movies. It's called kids-in-mind.com. But reading the descriptions of various potentially objectionable scenes is pretty funny, especially taken out of context. I like this one from Charlotte's Web:

A cow flatulates in a couple of scenes, at one time blowing in the direction of a rat that is consequently thrown off a fence. A rat burps loudly, and a cow drools.

From Shrek the Third:

Babies flatulate in a tub of water and giggle, a baby spits up on a woman, and babies and another character play in mud. A gingerbread man passes a gumball when frightened by many guards with swords.

I just like the phrase "chipmunks' buttocks" from Alvin and the Chipmunks:

A man opens a dishwasher and finds a chipmunk bathing; it covers its privates and screams. We see three line drawings of chipmunks' buttocks.

Apparently I am easily amused, with a fairly juvenile sense of humor as you can see. But I thought I'd share in case you also have the sense of humor of a 2nd grader.