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Comment by techjamie | Hacker News Reader

Looking at what movies got away with in the 80s while retaining a rating of "PG" definitely shows we're sliding on what we call acceptable.

There are numerous lists online that can be found with a search, but here's one by an IMDB user: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls020284330/

You could get away with some stuff in the 80s and keep PG.

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Oh my, I saw half of these movies as a kid and all of them left scars on my soul. Watching Poltergeist as a kid is like watching Event Horizon as an adult (I recommend watching Event Horizon though).

David Lynch's "Elephant Man" was considered a good kids' movie for my 5th-grade class.

Put it this way: My dad used to beat me, and that was less traumatic than that movie.

An example of modern ratings being oddly strict: Öoo is rated T by the ESRB[1]. It’s laughable that a nonviolent puzzle platformer about a caterpillar is less age appropriate than Breath of the Wild, which is rated E10+[2] despite also having bombs and a lot more violence.

If Öoo is rated T, should games staring Donald Duck be rated 18+ because he doesn’t wear pants and would be showing his crotch to children?

[1]: https://www.nintendo.com/en-ca/store/products/ooo-switch/

[2]: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/the-legend-of-zel...

I wonder if it's because it got labeled "Mild Violence" whereas the violence in LoZ is considered "Fantasy Violence."

Maybe Mild Violence is more commonly applied to more real world violence and therefore scores higher in rating considerations or something. Because that's the only way I can make sense of that labelling.

Maybe Nintendo engaged in more back and forth with the ratings board to negotiate a low rating for Zelda, and the indie dev just accepted what they got?

Genuinely puzzling for sure

I think this is exactly what happened.

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