There
are some laws that definitely need to be kept in place to help keep society
safe and united. Other laws have been
made under false ideas, specifically in relation to the protection of
youth. Two laws that personally
constrict me or that have in the past are the age to go into certain movies,
and the age limits after certain times to enter malls.
Certain
movies are given PG-13 or R ratings, which restricts the age of people that can
view that film to 13 and 17 years old, respectively. These restrictions are made on the premise
that the materials in the films are too mature for these younger audiences and
with this I would agree with. I do not
think that this should be made into law, instead it should be the parents or guardians
of the children that decide when the youth has reached the level of maturity
necessary to watch the movie. When teens
and youth hear that a film is restricted to them, it will intensify their
desire to see it and this completely defeats the point behind the age
restrictions. I myself am now old enough
to see any movie I choose, but firmly remember being too young to watch a movie,
and because of this I went to extreme lengths to see it. This law constricts in a negative way, and
instead of the children waiting until they are mature enough, the law in a
roundabout way pushes the kids to break the law and watch movies that they
probably shouldn’t be watching or might not even want to watch, but instead
they feel the need to watch it because they have been told they can’t.
I am
not sure if the laws regarding age in malls are uniform across America or even just
my state, but I know that in the Winston Salem area of North Carolina there is
a rule that all malls in our area have to close their doors to all youth under
18 after eight o’clock throughout the week unless they have someone over 21
with them. This does not directly affect
me, but it does whenever I want to bring my younger sister to the mall with
me. While this law is a nuisance I can see
why it is helpful. Teenagers in the
malls were responsible for a vast majority of shoplifting crimes, many of which
happened towards the evening when the malls were closing. By forcing teenagers to come with adults,
most often their parents, it makes it much harder for these crimes to be
committed. While it may be an inconvenience for me I can
see why in the end it makes everything much better and more effective for the
mall as a whole.
Both of
these laws have been constricting on me, and can often times be very frustrating. But I understand the mall law as necessary to
protect the goods of the mall and by extension myself and other consumers. The law regarding age in the movies however
seems to be working in the opposite direction of the way it was meant to
work. It is both a nuisance and
impractical, and may even damage societies youth as a whole.
No comments:
Post a Comment