Last year, parents made complaints about Kong: Skull Island; Baywatch, and The Jungle Bunch.
Those three movies were among the 16 that prompted a total of 25 complaints to the Irish Film Classification Office.
Another – US comedy Why Him? – attracted three complaints, one of which concerned the use of sexual language. “There is one scene in particular, which describes a sexual practice which I myself had not heard of until a few years ago (I am 43),” they wrote.
The complainant insisted that they were “no prude” but provided the film classifier with this advice: “If you’re unfamiliar with the term, I suggest if you are looking it up to maybe not Google image search if it’s early in the morning.”
Meanwhile, action comedy Baywatch was the subject of a complaint from a man who had seen the film with his wife and 15-year-old daughter. “In all my years of going to the movies, I have NEVER seen male genitalia shown up close on more than one occasion,” he wrote.
“She [his daughter] was not impressed and neither were we,” he added.
In his response, Assistant Film Classifier David Power noted that the nudity referred to was that of a naked male corpse, and had been “non-sexual” in nature.
Another parent had concerns about alcoholic product placement in Kong: Skull Island. “I suspect it is a form of subliminal advertising,” they wrote. “How can I protect my son from these sophisticated ‘association marketing’ techniques?”
Mr Power explained in his reply that the scenes mentioned were not sufficiently explicit in terms of instruction or encouragement to constitute subliminal marketing. “James Bond has been ordering vodka martinis in each of his many adventures for over 50 years,” he noted.
IFCO also received correspondence from a 10-year-old boy, asking the film classifier to consider changing the rating for sci-fi prequel Alien: Covenant, so that he would be allowed to see it.
He insisted that he “can handle” violence, gore, nudity, and mature themes; and promised that if the classifier agreed to change the rating to 15A, he would “send you amazing sketches saying ‘thank you for being the best’.”
Mr Power declined the offer, however, and regretted that IFCO was not in a position to change the film’s rating, but said: “You sound like a big movie fan, so I know you’ll find some other good movies you can attend instead.”
Sci-fi horror Life, starring Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal, was the subject of two complaints. One of these was from a self-described “ethical vegan” who was so distressed by a scene involving animal experimentation that they experienced a panic attack and was unable to drive home for 30 minutes.
“Seeing a rodent strapped down with an up-close scene of how tight the leather strap is around its neck for gratuitous effect had the same effect on me as though that being was a person or a baby,” they wrote.
One parent complained that they had walked out of kid’s animation The Jungle Bunch with their three children (aged between seven and nine) due to the “amount of death and threat” throughout the movie. This included “illegal fight-club scenes… human rights abuses, taking animals as slaves… all in an exceptionally poor movie,” according to the complainant.
