16-year-olds should be allowed to see R-rated movies without an adult. 16-year-olds are young adults, getting ready to enter the real world. 16-year-olds are old enough to deal with seeing the situations portrayed in R-rated movies. In many cases, the policies in place do not prevent 16-year olds from seeing R-rated movies. Furthermore, restricting 16-year-olds from seeing R-rated movies deprives them of seeing many educational and artistic films.Teenagers are already aware of the topics which movies receive R ratings for. Movies receive R ratings for three main reasons: Adult language, adult situations, and extreme violen ...view middle of the document...
Violence is shown all the time on television and in video games, which 16-year-olds can see anytime. Seeing these things in a movie won't make them any more or less aware of them and likely to do them.The current policy on 16-year-olds and R-rated movies is intended to help parents screen what their children see; however this isn't the case at all. Parental consent is not required, only that an adult attend the movie with the 16-year-old. It can be any adult. Most 16-year-olds have 18-year-old friends who could attend a movie with them and get them in. It is the parents' job to know where their children are, not that of the theatre or the government. This policy merely gives parents a false sense of security.Sometimes R-rated material is necessary in movies for artistic reasons. Just as a woman in a movie set in the 1600s wouldn't wear blue jeans, a street gang must use street slang and language for a movie to be effective. A war movie loses it's impact if scenes of violence are not shown. Many R-rated movies are a reflection of real life.16-year olds have seen the content of R-rated movies before, and will see it time and time again. To shield them from these issues in film is to shield them from life itself. If some well-intentioned parents wish to do this, they need to take responsibility for it themselves. Other people's children should be free to sample adult life in the safety of a movie theater, before they are confronted with it in reality.