An Impressionable Age

I found your March 11 cover story articles quite timely and vitally important (‘Rated C for Confusing” and “Does the Ad Say It All?’).

It is unbelievable what passes for PG-13 these days. Sex and sexual humor, drugs and alcohol and their use, profanity, violence, aggression-these are not age appropriate, yet are constant elements and themes in the majority of PG-13 movies out right now. What messages are being sent to our young people, the hope of our future? Is it any wonder that today’s teens seem so lost, angry, aggressive, confused about what’s real and what they see in movies and TV-that a disagreement and perceived slight can be dealt with by using a gun? What happened to trying to talk out disagreements?

To keep the money flowing and avoid censure, the movies cited (‘Coyote Ugly,” ’Saving Silverman,” etc.) and several other PG-13 movies all seem to me to actually be R-rated thematically, just mildly edited in order to not end up in the headlines as being wrongly marketed to teens.

When there’s so much the film industry could do to help today’s teens-more inspiring movies such as “Save the Last Dance” or movies centering around increasing (rather than decreasing) tolerance and acceptance of diversity-it seems a shame that such junk is pandered to our young people. Oh, but wait-those movies might not bring in the millions of dollars that some poor excuses for movies today do.

Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy a good movie. But when will enough people wake up to what is happening to today’s youth who are so influenced by the media, and speak up?

JOANNE BARDINI

Ventura