The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (another tirade on the rating system)

So, last night my nearly 11 year old daughter and I watched the acclaimed Boy in the Striped Pajamas from 2008, rated PG-13.  She had been begging me for days and I knew it was a well-received movie and stars one of our favorite child actors, Asa Butterfield (Hugo, Ender's Game), but I also knew that it was about Nazi Germany and concentration camps, so I worried that it would be too intense or graphic for her.  I finally looked at the rating to guide me and was surprised to find it rated PG-13, so I said we could watch it together.  My daughter is a huge film buff and very mature for her age.  In fact, they are reading Anne Frank in her class right now, so it all seemed appropriate.

I think I have to stop looking at ratings to guide me at all.  Even up to the very end of this movie, when we were worried for the lead character of the film and starting to cry, (SPOILERS) I assured her we should get through the bad to see the good at the end of the movie and that probably the worst would not happen to the main character, an 8 year old boy.  I was wrong.  I spent the next hour talking my daughter through the message of movies like this and how creating and seeing stories like this helps us not to repeat the mistakes of the past and that the "bad" characters in the movie themselves learned something from the final result as well, etc.

When will the ratings setters learn that disturbing and complicated themes are FAR WORSE than a few "F" words or flashes of boobs in a movie!?  I say again, those latter items can easily be explained and controlled when a child sees them, but difficult and upsetting stories need much more attention from a parent and a special relationship with the child that allows for intricate conversations, vocabulary and context that I'm afraid most families aren't prepared for.  Thank God I was.  I took that risk, but I don't know if I will again. 

We just saw Bad Words with Jason Bateman, which was Rated R and had about every curse word and inappropriate behavior that could happen in one movie and yet the story itself was sweet and heartwarming and ultimately just illicited giggles but needed almost no explanation - my daughter knows what's appropriate and what is not.  She does not, however, understand the many and varied evils that human kind can inflict on itself or as in my previous post on this subject, unexplained supernatural evils as in the movie Mama, also rated PG-13.

What is the point of these ratings if not to help guide parents?  I am telling you right now that you should IGNORE them entirely.  Know your child, go online and find all you can on a movie before they see it, spoilers be damned, and watch and discuss as necessary with your child.  That is all we can do as parents until the raters wake up and see the importance of their job.

(in the end, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is as good as its reputation and well worth seeing, when you feel it is appropriate for your child)