Flashdance: Why Wasn't It Rated PG?
OK, I know there is already another Flashdance-related thread, but it was closed TWO YEARS AGO, so don't start screaming at me, bitches!
My question is more to the people on here who are in the movie business: Why wasn't this movie rated PG? Aside from about a dozen or so uses of the word "fuck" (only a couple that would have required an "R" rating because they were referring to the actual sex act), why did this movie receive an "R" rating? I can only think that the producers (and writer/dirty-middle-aged man writer Joe Esterhaus) targeted an R rating because it gave the movie a certain "racy" cache. I know there was that scene where Sunny Johnson is slithering around half-naked in the strip club while the other strippers run around bare-chested trying to stop Virtuous Alex from dragging her disgraced former ice skater friend (who had practiced for a whole TWO YEARS before giving up) from a life of debauchery.
And while that scene is hilarious (and one of MY favorites because it's so stupid), if they were really trying to target the 12-17 MTV/Duran Duran/Culture Club-loving teens of 1983, WHY did they insist on keeping that scene because it certainly guaranteed an R rating? If it had been a PG-rated movie, it probably would have made double the box office, especially with all of the heavy MTV play of the two videos? What were the producers thinking?wh
As an aside, I hope for next year's 40th anniversary version of the film, they include the deleted scene at the end where she is hooted out of the reparatory company for even THINKING that breakdancing will give her an instant entree into the institution. After which, she runs humiliated into the Pittsburgh streets, goes off into the woods, and emerge on the tracks of the Duquesne Incline, at which time she is promptly cut in half by the trolley.
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | April 14, 2022 10:51 PM
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She can do the Fosse "jazz hands" as she is bisected by the incline. Just for background purposes, she couldn't get out of the way of the slow-moving incline because of the back spasms she acquired while spinning on her back during her laughter-inspiring ballet audition.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | April 9, 2022 4:12 AM
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Esterhaus. Are you here? What were your thoughts?
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | April 9, 2022 5:29 AM
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Personally I appreciate movies that embrace being R-rated instead of PG so they can make more money.
Adrian Lyne is not really a PG-type director.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | April 12, 2022 1:09 AM
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It was the shot of the sister’s throbbing pudenda in one of the figure skating scenes.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | April 12, 2022 1:13 AM
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I find it more interesting Sixteen Candles with its language, rape jokes and nudity was only Rated PG.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | April 12, 2022 1:22 AM
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Perhaps a bigger surprise was that they didn't do a PG-rated cut to boost box office (even though Flashdance was already the #3 movie of 1983 in box office) like how they re-edited Saturday Night Fever into a PG cut a few years earlier so younger kids who loved John Travolta could see it by taking out the rape scene and some of the racier dialogue
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | April 12, 2022 1:40 AM
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Geez, Flashdance will be 40 years old...geesh!
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | April 12, 2022 1:43 AM
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It was rated R because of the toe job in the restaurant scene.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | April 12, 2022 2:58 AM
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The Simpsons's parody of it, where Lisa performs at the Little Miss Springfield contest, is a favorite.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | April 12, 2022 3:30 AM
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I love this movie. It shouldn't work at all but it does. And it's still enjoyable.
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | April 12, 2022 3:37 AM
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"She's DEAD!!"
--every single person in the audience when i first saw this in 1982, out loud, when Alex enters her elderly mentor's hallway, just before she learns the news because it was so obvious
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | April 12, 2022 3:49 AM
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Adrian Lyne sure liked the name Alex. (Beals in this and Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.)
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | April 12, 2022 6:12 AM
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It was rated PG because R ratings limited the audience for teen appealing movies.
Flashdance, Sixteen Candles (sex) and the second Indiana Jones movie (violence) led to the creation of the PG 13 rating right around this time.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | April 12, 2022 6:16 AM
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Flashdance WAS rated R, hence the OP's thread.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | April 12, 2022 6:22 AM
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[quote] very single person in the audience when i first saw this in 1982, out loud, when Alex enters her elderly mentor's hallway, just before she learns the news because it was so obvious
Wow, how did the whole crowd manage to time travel back a year, including taking the film print with you since Flashdance came out in 83.
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | April 12, 2022 6:27 AM
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[quote] Flashdance, Sixteen Candles (sex) and the second Indiana Jones movie (violence) led to the creation of the PG 13 rating right around this time.
Wrong. Flashdance had nothing to do with it, since it was rated R, nor did Sixteen Candles. The two movies that led to the PG-13 rating were Gremlins and Temple of Doom.
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | April 12, 2022 6:28 AM
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I saw a sanitized version on network tv. In the restaurant scene instead of telling the ex wife she fucked Nouri’s brains out Beals said they made mad, passionate love. And the nudity was cut.
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | April 14, 2022 5:56 AM
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This damn movie stole *our* Best Original Song Oscar! SLAPPPPPP!!! 🖕🖕🖕🤮🤮🤮
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | April 14, 2022 6:19 AM
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"Eye of the Tiger" was the year before, Survivor.
Irene Cara stole that Oscar from MEEEEE!!
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | April 14, 2022 10:51 PM
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