RENT scores PG13- Page 2

[kyle.]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 5:06pm

on the dvd commentary (i think) of garden state, mr braff talks about how they made garden state R because they said the F word 3 times instead of 2 times or something crazy like that.

i think they should keep it the way he wrote it. its how people really talk. parents bring their 14 year olds to the show ALL the time. they can take them to the movie too.

[incendiary_wit]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 5:13pm

He seems to really recognize the artistic opportunity that making this movie will be for him, as well. It will, after all, be his first R-rated film.

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?page=10&thread=483538&startthread=490464&boardname=bway

Page 10.

I'm inclined to believe someone involved in the production more than a lot of speculation. No offense intended.

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 5:13pm

I'll still be there. "R" rating or not. HUZZAH!!!!

[Pinguin]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 5:18pm

For me, this just ads to the skepticism already arising from the trailers -that this movie is going to be a big ball of cheese.

I'm not really missing any F-words (I couldn't care less), but all of this is just a sign that the movie is going to be without edge.

I'll still see it of course, but it doesn't seem like the movie has taken any risky moves.

[andyf]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 5:25pm

Re: kasim's post doubting that a huge chunk of the core audience is at or below the 13-17 demographic...I present to you Exhibit A:

loudasthehelliwant:
*doubts about Chris Columbus's ability come flooding in*

Drugs, "f.u.c.k.", strippers, AIDS... and a PG-13?

I mean, I know you can get away with a lot these days, but...

*was counting on it being "R"*

I mean, now I can go see it w/o my parents buying me a ticket, but stil...

I'm kinda disappointed, and worried that it's going to be too fluffy. :/




I'm assuming you weren't trying to be ironic. If you were, PLEASE tell me so my blood pressure can take a currently much-needed dive and so I can start breathing again, but....are you serious?

Before I head up to the belltower with my rifle and start spraying the place, I will take a pit stop in my happy place and do some simple math:

FACT: You have to be 17 to buy a ticket to an R-rated movie.
So, if you will not be able to get into RENT (which opens in November) without a parent, you will be 16 when the movie comes out.

FACT: RENT, the musical, opened in April of 1996.
This means you were, at the very oldest, 7 years old when RENT opened.

You're 7. You're 7 years old and you're talking about how you're worried that RENT is going to be too fluffy.



Please stop living.

Updated On: 9/9/05 at 05:25 PM

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 5:36pm

What difference does it make how old she was when it opened? She never said she saw it when she was 7.

[Fosse76]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 5:51pm

OK, let's be clear. It isn't illegal to sell tickets to an R-rated film to a minor. It is a self-regulated imposition. That being said, as I've said in numerous posts, the ratings board is inconsistent and very subjective. Therefore, they can be lenient. Example: Harry Potter is a kids movie. Everyone kid in the world will see it. If they say *F**** even once, I guarantee you that they will slap it with an R-rating, because the board knows the core audience will be children, and they aren't going to let that in, even once. RENT, on the other hand, has a core audience of teens. The use of the word *F**** the way it is in the show may or may not justify an R-rating. They know teens under the age of 18 will want to see RENT, but younger children will likely not have any interest, plus it's a musical which also limits its appeal. Therefore, they can be more lenient with the rating, believeing that since it won't appeal to children, the language won't be an issue. The subject matter, though serious, doesn't warrant an R-rating either.

[Chloe]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 6:26pm

I agree that the ratings board is much more inconsistent and subjective than the guidelines might indicate. Everyone involved with a film I worked on recently assumed it would get a PG-13. It's a light comedy with no swearing and a little bit of sex. However, it came away with an R. We're guessing it's because of some pot shots taken at the Catholic Church.

I'm surprised at the RENT rating too, but I don't think everyone should jump to the conclusion that the language has been cleaned up. This might be one of those cases when an exception is made.

[andyf]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 6:34pm

Can somebody refresh my memory about the language everyone is worried has been cleaned up. Someone mentioned "Dudes, I'm on my way. Great...****!" and "...****ing weird." but what else is there? Off the top of my head, all I can think of is "This lots full of mother****in artists." I mean, Collins and Angel's original duet, "Hey there, ****ty, ****ty fag-fag," was replaced with "You Okay, Honey?" REALLY early in the workshop, so I'm just wondering how bad the language in the show really is...

Anybody?

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 6:37pm

F*CKIN' weird.....
F*CKIN' cheated.

Tango: Maureen.

[Dirty Rotten Scoundrel]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 6:40pm

Those are my 2 favorite uses of the word **** in that show, lol.

[Fiyero2]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 6:41pm

Yay! that's so awsome!! i'm 14 so i'll be able to see the movie!! I haven't seen the show you but i noe all the music!! I Love Rent,.....although i do agre judging by the soundtrack it should be rated "R"

[Eliza0114]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 6:45pm

congrats to all the prebubesant teens who will be able to see the movie, but honestly, I think it takes away from some of the Rent integrity to edit it down that much. Rent is about the hard life, and if your life sucks and you live in downtown NYC in an itsy-bitsy apartment that you're about to be evicted from, you're more than likely going to drop a few "F" bombs every once in a while. just the way it goes.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 6:52pm

Um, we don't know that it's been "edited down." At all. The quickness to take the negative side amazes me; maybe it wasn't edited to fit a mold, but rather, maybe the rating is lenient.

Updated On: 9/9/05 at 06:52 PM

[Eliza0114]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 6:54pm

I certainly hope you're right, but in all honesty, there are too many F-bombs in order to make a PG-13 rating, and while they can be sort of lenient in some of their ratings, there are certain things that are set in stone. that is one of them.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 6:56pm

Hasn't the point of this thread been that the ratings are pretty subjective? That policy of simply counting curse-words doesn't sound like it's too legit. Much more should go into rating a movie than that, which I suspect is the case here.

[Eliza0114]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 7:02pm

it should, but if they say the F word more than, I think, 3 times, the film gets slapped with an R rating. the rules are somewhere...it should be way more subjective, I agree...but unfortunately, nothing is that easy/fair.

[Ebonic_Singer]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 7:57pm

Andrew--I love the fact that the first time in 87,687 years that you post on the boards is to b*tch slap some mofos.

[EvelynNesbit1906]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 8:24pm

"Rent is about the hard life, and if your life sucks and you live in downtown NYC in an itsy-bitsy apartment that you're about to be evicted from, you're more than likely going to drop a few "F" bombs every once in a while."

The apartment looked pretty spacious to me in the trailer-...

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 8:27pm

I think there was more than one F word in CELLULAR.

The fact that several of the curses in RENT are sung might also figure into things.

Updated On: 9/9/05 at 08:27 PM

[Bdwyguy30]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 8:55pm

Just for the record let's not forget Chicago was rated PG 13 as well and that wasn't exactly fluff. So I think it makes sense in my personal opinion.

[JenD512]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 8:57pm

OK, let's be clear. It isn't illegal to sell tickets to an R-rated film to a minor. It is a self-regulated imposition.

Actually, theaters can be fined upwards of $500 for selling tickets to an R-rated movie to someone under 17.

Example: Harry Potter is a kids movie. Everyone kid in the world will see it. If they say *F**** even once, I guarantee you that they will slap it with an R-rating, because the board knows the core audience will be children, and they aren't going to let that in, even once.

'Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire' just got tagged with the first PG-13 rating in the series which means every kid in the world might not be seeing it. It's a big deal. I don't think it will matter--they thought 'Revenge of the Sith' would lose a lot of kid audience because of the PG-13, and it did fine.

I could care less what rating "Rent" is getting. The R would have been nice, because it meant that I wouldn't have to sit in a movie theater with hordes of shrieking teenage Rentheads.

PG-13 makes total sense, though. They couldn't make this into a movie, then make it inaccessible to their huge teenage fanbase. They would lose a ton of money.

It's not just the movie, either. The cast album has language, but it didn't get slapped with parental advisory label. "Hedwig & the Angry Inch" did, and there's no language on it.

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 9/9/05 at 9:02pm

"Actually, theaters can be fined upwards of $500 for selling tickets to an R-rated movie to someone under 17."

Can I ask you where you got that information from?

[Fosse76]

Posted: 9/10/05 at 1:17am

"Actually, theaters can be fined upwards of $500 for selling tickets to an R-rated movie to someone under 17."

Not by any government in the U.S., since there aren't any laws that regulate film ratings. The MPAA might fine them, but first they have to prove it, which is EXTREMELY difficult.

On another note, ratings are subjective. As I said, they also look at the film's content and who is MOST LIKELY going to want to see it. Harry Potter IV should probably still only be rated PG, but the ratings board knows that a lot of small children would still be going to see it, parents are going to want to take them, but the Voldemort scene could potentially scare them, so they gave it a harsher rating than it may have deserved, hoping to dissuade parents from showing the film to their children or at least give them pause to think about letting their children see it. RENT is most likely going to appeal to 15 (average) and above, so the ratings board likely was more lenient on the language because they know that the audience most likely to WANT to see the film are probably in their late teens and above.

[JenD512]

Posted: 9/10/05 at 1:35am

Can I ask you where you got that information from?

My sister, who worked at a Loews for 2 years. It's not "law", but it's enforced, I'm not sure by who. Loews would often sneak "spies" into the theater to see if the employees would sell them tickets to R-movies, just to make sure the rule was being enforced. She used to complain all the time about having to fight with kids over R-tickets when wouldn't sell them tickets, and she found out later that one of them did turn out to be a plant.

Harry Potter IV should probably still only be rated PG, but the ratings board knows that a lot of small children would still be going to see it, parents are going to want to take them, but the Voldemort scene could potentially scare them, so they gave it a harsher rating than it may have deserved, hoping to dissuade parents from showing the film to their children or at least give them pause to think about letting their children see it.

Goblet of Fire needs to be a PG-13 movie. It's way too violent for PG.