Beech Tree News Network

Have you ever wondered what movie was responsible for the creation of the PG-13 rating? Most of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was typical PG adventure fare, no different from past Indy movies or Star Wars.  There were, however, more disturbing scenes like the one where Mola Ram extracts a man’s heart and sacrifices him to Kali.  Initially, this was deemed enough to give it an R rating, just as the climactic scene was for Raiders of the Lost Ark before it.  In that instance, all Lucasfilm had to do was obscure Belloq’s exploding head with a column of fire to reduce the impact of the scene and they got their PG back, but Temple of Doom was comparatively a lot more pervasive with things that might’ve been disturbing to young children. 

A whole class of action and horror movies were emerging that didn’t seem “mature” but still registered complaints for the PG rating being misleading about their level of gore and violence in some scenes.  So, Speilberg & company went onto suggest that the MPAA needed some kind of middle ground rating between PG and R to denote movies as appropriate for teenagers but too mature for children.

Temple of Doom remained PG, leaving many parents in 1984 rather dismayed, the new rating was instituted that year as PG-13, and first applied to the movie Red Dawn several months later. (www.mentalfloss.com)

https://open.spotify.com/show/61yTPt9wXdz37DZTbPUs16?si=w5jHghPVRmaTaP5ZEI-wzQ

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blendertainment/id1541097172