This Essay Is Rated PG-13

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Greed. Infectious greed. However unsuitable the material may be for kids, Hollywood wants their disposable income. The 10-to-12 crowd helps pay the salaries and points of pricey artistes like Spielberg and Myers. A studio pays them so highly, it needs a guarantee that the film will be available to the widest possible audiences, so a PG-13 rating is often built into the contracts. The only thing dirtier than the gags in Goldmember is the money that's made from them.

Lighten up, I hear some of you saying. I say it myself. I fret I'm in danger of living out a haunting truism: that a conservative is just a liberal who has finally grown old or grown up. But I don't think I'm wrong here. I think the easy, sleazy PG-13 rating makes truly adult movies an endangered species. If even our most powerful filmmakers are afraid to make an R-rated film, how will American movies ever mature? And what will the preteens raised on Austin Powers have to watch--or want to watch--when they grow up?