Frozen 2 should be rated R, a writer argues with data

Designer and writer Matt Webb has a bone to pick with the movie ratings board. Ferris Bueller's Day Off carries a PG-13 for cursing and kissing, but Frozen 2 - where a tidal wave nearly levels an entire kingdom - sailed through with a PG. In a post titled "Frozen 2 should be rated R", Webb argues that blockbusters treat mass death as a throwaway plot point audiences have gone numb to. Building a story on it, he writes, is "SO LAZY."

Webb had ChatGPT score the top 10 box-office films from each of the last 50 years on a five-point "jeopardy" scale, from personal embarrassment to existential catastrophe. The average climbed from 2.77 in the late 1970s to 4.08 in the 2020s. Back then, 43% of hits were low-stakes; now it's 7%. "I am not imagining this," he writes.

His fix: rate films by their emotional stakes rather than their swear words. Ferris Bueller, whose plot turns on a borrowed Ferrari's odometer, would earn a G. Frozen 2 would get an R.

Previously:

• Movie fan Trump apparently missed 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off'

• Matt Berry reads hilariously prurient Matt Stone memo to the MPAA

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