For Truth In Advertising, Use ‘Profane Language’ Label
My mom, my sisters and I were at the movie theater recently, sitting through the previews that always take so long. We were eating popcorn. After they were done telling us not to smoke and telling us to take crying babies out, they started the movie. On the screen it said: This film is PG-13 because of adult language.
Adult language? Is that what it really is? Just because you are old doesn’t mean that you use foul language. My mom and dad, for example, are both adults and still say “shoot” when they mess up.
Kids at school swear all the time. They swear about teachers and how they treat students. They swear in the halls. They swear because they don’t know how to express their feelings. Or it was how they were brought up. Maybe some of them got it from their parents.
I think it’s a turnoff, especially when girls do it. I don’t swear at all. Ever. The other kids know this about me so they are usually good about not swearing to my face.
So it really bothers me that movies say adult language but actually teenagers use bad language the most. The movie industry says that you’re not an adult until you’re 17. But they also label everyone older than 17 as users of adult language. It implies that you are mature if you swear a lot.
If adults and teenagers both swear and both do actions that are graphic, the proper words for the opening of a movie should be changed. Profane language should be substituted for adult language. And graphic content should substitute for adult content.
If this substitution would be made it would make profane language look like what it is - bad language. And it would make graphic content look like what it is - violence, sex and drug use.
If this change happened, kids my age would see that bad language is not necessarily adult language.
Nothing will probably change, so people should come 15 minutes late and skip all the previews or walk out of the movie like we did in the middle of “Dumb and Dumber.” The swearing made my mom and me uncomfortable, especially in front of my two younger sisters.
MEMO: Your Turn is a feature of the Wednesday and Saturday Opinion page. To submit a column for consideration, call Rebecca Nappi/459-5496, or Doug Floyd/459-5466.