Topic: The definition of "Mature" (Not what you think it is, read first post)

No, this is not an indictment of swearing and gore as something that is "immature", or anything of the sort. So don't click away.

I was talking with some friends about movies I've seen lately, and Gone Girl came up recently. Eventually the discussion came to a point where we were talking about who the movie would be good for, and that honestly got me thinking of the way we classify media as "mature" or "kid-friendly". It seems like the way that "maturity" is measured is through very binary categories that have simple "yes/no" answers. Violence, sexual content, language, etc. But I don't think that really does a good job of giving the full picture of whether a piece of content is appropriate for an audience or not. Going back to Gone Girl as an example, even if the cursing, violence, and sexual content were absent, I still wouldn't recommend the film to a younger viewer. The film is simply complex to a degree that a child would get lost, and it addresses ideas that would be a lot more foreign to a younger viewer (a critique of marriage and media surrounding criminal investigations).

I don't think it's simply a distinction between "mature content" and "mature themes" either. Big Hero 6 has a very mature theme in that it addresses how we deal with loss. But the theme is handled in a way that is easily understood by children, and not veiled in complexity. I think it's really in fact a gradual scale that's difficult to discern.

Thoughts?

Well yeah, if you're in your 20's and start swearing and being vulgar you will likely be told to "grow up" by someone as it's inmature but it still doesn't take away that violence, sex etc is for mature audiences. The kid friendly and mature tags/age rating are for the content of what's in them and not the subject matter.

Content Rating =/= Audience Aimed.

If a kid gets bored of a movie then it's just not their type of movie.. likewise there may be a kid who would enjoy and understand a film like that, meaning the only thing for them to worry about is the inappropriate content for that age group.