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Which is exactly what American children have savored, with no verifiable scars, since the days of Pinocchio and the Road Runner. It's likely that the mayhem in Jurassic Park and Last Action Hero is more upsetting to protective parents than to seen-it-all kids. At least, that is the impression one gets from the stars in Hollywood's new infant infantry. Life with Mikey's Christina Vidal, 11, saw Casualties of War, the brutal melodrama about a rape in Vietnam, and "sure, it was too intense for some kids under 11. But it depends ; on how mature or smart you are. If you're smart, you won't be influenced too much by a movie." Mason (Dennis) Gamble observes that "Terminator 2 was probably too violent for most kids my age" -- he's 7 -- "but I liked it a lot, especially the robots."
Seattle's Malinger claims that his favorite films are Cape Fear, Hot Shots! and Friday the 13th. "Some PG movies can be good," he avers; "others can be really boring and childish, like they were made for five-year-olds." And Joseph Mazzello, who gets chased by raptors and jolted off an electrified fence in Jurassic Park, says, "Violence can be scary for some kids while others don't mind it -- they think it's funny." Everyone is his own movie critic. Everybody is someone else's censor.
In the new movies, as in moviemaking and moviegoing, adults have ceded power to their young. As gruff Mr. Wilson finally recognizes in Dennis the Menace, "Kids are kids. You have to play by their rules." If that is so, then their rules deserve an R, for Restrictive. To please the new kidocracy, Hollywood may renounce sniggering sex scenes, as long as filmmakers are allowed to investigate the complicated sexual feelings to which no one over the age of PG-13 is immune. The industry can tone down the violence, especially the toonish torture of Lethal Weapon comic-book films, as long as films can still show what all viewers of news shows know: that life, here and around the world, is full of pain. Oh, and movies can put a douser on the spew of obscenities -- anyway, who goes to a movie for the dirty words?
But it is infantile to surrender to the Kidding of American movies. If the country thinks that this is how children and the rest of us should be entertained and enlightened, America is kidding itself.
CHART: NOT AVAILABLE
CREDIT: NO CREDIT
CAPTION: ON A PG SPREE
The 10 top-grossing films released in the past three years included only two that were rated R