re: Did your parents take you to R rated movies in the 80's, 90's

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Was Smokey and the Bandit rated R? If so that was my first. I was probably 7 and it was at a drive-in.

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Nope, it was rated PG.

I was born in 1964, so by the time the '80s came along I was pretty much old enough to go see R rated films myself with no hassle.

But in the 70s as a young kid-- no, my parents did NOT take us to see R rated movies.

Two examples:

1. In 1973, the family went to a drive in to see Badlands (by Terrence Malick) which was rated PG, and I watched it from the back seat. No problem. The second feature was Two Lane Blacktop which was actually rated R. It was late by that point and they tried to get me to go to sleep like my younger sister had. I laid down in the back seat but was still awake. Not long after the movie began there was a piece of dialogue that included "m___er- f__er", and that was that; we left right away.

2. Saturday Night Fever came out in early 1978 when I was 13; I wanted to see it-- it was a major pop culture thing but it was rated "R". My mom went and saw it with a few other ladies (kind of pre-screening it) and after seeing it she told me NO WAY. It's funny, because later they released a re-cut version that had a PG rating:


But by then, though, I had no desire to see it.

The first time I saw an R rated movie in a theater was "The Amityville Horror" in summer 1979, when I was 15; I went with my very conservative father and uncle. I had already read the book and I don't think anyone even cared that it was rated "R", and looking back on it I can't see why it was rated "R" and not "PG" anyway.

Then, of course, we got cable in late 1979 (and HBO), so when the folks weren't home or were asleep I could watch anything and everything I wanted, like "Animal House" "Pretty Baby" "Halloween", and pretty much anything that the monthly HBO guide listed as having "nudity" and "adult situations"...

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parents didn't even want me to watch stuff like MTV or pro wrestling. Back then, especially my mom

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My mom called the cable company to have MTV removed. I’m pretty sure it was because of this video.



My wife and I watched it together the other night….

Adding a little context to my earlier post, I'm guessing it's a generational thing. My parents were young adults in the 1950s, and liked movies a lot. Audie Murphy westerns, Jane Wyman weepies, Louis Hayward costume adventures, etc. Pretty avid movie-goers. But by the 1960s, getting married, starting a family, working a busy job, etc., the visits to the moviehouse stopped entirely for them. A major factor also being television, which replaced that entertainment need. I observed this same pattern with many of my friends' families.

By the time the 1970s arrived, it's a totally different landscape. My parents (and their peers) seemed in a constant state of befuddlement. A ratings system? What the hell does GP/PG even mean? They'd see those grubby-looking newspaper ads for current films showing at the local theater... "Dog Day Afternoon," "Shaft's Big Score," "A Clockwork Orange," "Freebie and the Bean," and be both rather aghast and mystified. It all had such an unsavory tint, compared to what they had been accustomed to, just ten, fifteen years before, in their movie-going heyday. It was just a visceral turn-off for them. They never went to an R-rated movie, and only a precious few PG ones. I knew a lot of parents like this. As I mentioned, it wasn't that my parents were particularly religious or anything. It's just that they just didn't like skeezy stuff with characters cussing or smutty situations or crazy violence. They wouldn't sit through such material. The idea of them bringing their kids to an R-rated film would be beyond unthinkable. Total science-fiction..

But movie-going was still thought of as a normal part of kid life, with all the parents' fond recollections of saturday matinees and such. So, I'd be dropped off at the theater to see things like re-issues of "20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea," "Treasure Island," "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad," and accompany friends to things like (the rather insufferable) "Willie Wonka" movie, or the "Pink Panther" films. Didn't see a PG-film until "The Eagle Has Landed" (1976), but went to quite a few after that. None of these were with my parents. They just dropped us off. Honestly, by the time I was in high-school and college, I hardly ever saw any films at the theater. Maybe once a year at most. There just wasn't much I found all that enticing. Plus, the theater-going experience lost a lot of its charm. I used to like the grand old-time theaters in my earlier visits. But, gradually those closed up, and I'd mostly encounter those dismal, crackerbox, hole-in-the-wall theaters found at shopping malls and such. I found those so incredibly dreary. Ultimately, I just got way more enjoyment sitting at home and watching the late-shows on television.