Get the latest gossip
How absurd to make Mary Poppins a 'PG' when so many films in that category are laden with swearing, sex and violence, argues the Mail's movie critic BRIAN VINER
The BBFC has decreed that Mary Poppins - one of the most popular and successful children's films ever made - must shed its long-held 'U' rating and be raised to a 'PG'.
It came to be used pejoratively, but even by 1964 it had become dated, and that’s precisely the point: the absurd Edwardian Naval veteran Admiral Boom (played by Reginald Owen) mistakes sooty-faced chimney sweeps for ‘Hottentots’ purely to illustrate what an idiotic, out-of-touch old duffer he is. There is a strong case for adjusting the classification of certain children’s films, but while self-important bods on the board — presided over by the former newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky — tiptoe around their own liberal sensibilities, they miss much more grievous examples of what might genuinely scar the under-12s. The 1979 legal drama stars Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman as a couple going through an acrimonious divorce and custody case, and its devastating impact on their young son, can be deeply upsetting for children, especially those who have suffered similar experiences.
Or read this on Daily Mail
