Where Have All The PG's Gone?

I went to a movie in the theaters this weekend. I rarely go to movie theaters but a group of friends wanted to go see a certain movie that I had never heard about (which isn't a rare thing since I don't have a T.V. or go to the theater). I should have asked more questions about the movie but soon realized 5 minutes into it that it was an R-rating. My Dad love's war movies so I have seen my share of R-rated films but over the past 4 years I would say my taste for R-rated films is turning bitter.

My opinion is that many good movies and story lines are ruined with the insane amount of profanity and sexual content. It's my assumption that PG-13's and R's are similar to Wal-Mart's....there are more and more of them because we as a people are creating a demand for them. I found an interesting study completed by David M. Lang and David M. Switzer called "Does Sex Sell? A Look at the Effects of Sex and Violence on Motion Picture Revenues," that proves this point.

In Lang and Switzer's paper they state that "Thompson and Yokota (2004) analyze(d) movies from 1992 to 2003 and (found) that the total level of sex, violence and profanity (SVP) has followed an upward trend."

As economist they were confused about this since "some research has shown that Rrated movies are less profitable" and that "G and PGrated movies perform better at the box office, yet movie studios continue to make more PG-13 and R-rated movies."

Through their study they answer my question, where have all the PG's gone?

To summarize some of the paper’s findings, they show that the overall level of Sex ,Violence and Profanity does not appear to have a significant impact on a movie’s revenues. However, each of these levels examined individually leads to a different conclusion.Violence has a positive effect on revenues, while profanity has a negative effect, especially when one considers foreign box office.

"When separating movies by MPAA rating, we find that a movie’s violent content has the most consistent positive impact on box office revenues. We find that sex does in fact sell, resulting in higher box office sales to adults and students. Finally, we find that movies rated R and PG-13 sell much better to international audiences, which helps explain why movie studios continue to produce much more of them than PG and G movies," said Lang and Switzer.

So where have all the PG's gone? Not to the box office.