Idea for the parental advisory page

We really find the parental advisory pages useful for determining whether to watch certain movies or not. There is just one idea I have for improvement though since there seems to be one type of category missing, and it would affect our decision to watch certain movies or not, and that is content having to do with the occult or supernatural. Of course like the other categories it would not be a matter of saying whether something is bad or offensive or not but just relating the facts. For example, the elements of magic or supernatural powers in the movie Frozen may seem harmless but some parents may still not want to expose their children to anything having to do with magic. Other movies however, like sleeping beauty, have a rather darker section of magic almost like voodoo and whether such is frightening or not, I personally would love it if there is a category for listing or describing content having to do with magic or occult or supernatural things like ghosts etc Thanks for all the hard work that goes into these things and providing such a straightforward easy way for me to even make such a suggestion.

Responses

dan_dassow

Champion

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19.3K Messages

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475.6K Points

9 years ago

Hi beth,

Until your idea is implemented you have two possible alternatives:

1. Include information regarding magic or the occult in the Frightening/Intense Scenes section.

2. In additional to the Parental Guide many films and television programs have a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page. Here is the link to the one for Frozen (I) (2013):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294629/faq
The FAQ page allows for sections to be added.

You may have noticed this caveat on the Parental Guide and FAQ pages:

The content of this page was created directly by users and has not been screened or verified by IMDb staff.

Anyone with an authenticated account can update the Parental Guide. If you can post to IMDb's message boards, such as the one for Frozen (I) (2013) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294629/board), you could edit the Parental Guide and/or the FAQ.

If you plan to edit an Parental Guide or FAQ, I strongly urge you to follow this guidance:

Since the beliefs that parents want to instill in their children can vary greatly, we ask that, instead of adding your personal opinions about what is right or wrong in a film, you use this feature to help parents make informed viewing decisions by describing the facts of relevant scenes in the title for each one of the different categories: Sex and Nudity, Violence and Gore, Profanity, Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking, and Frightening/Intense Scenes.

I also strongly urge that you discuss any changes before making them. There are discussion pages for both Parental Guide and FAQ.

Visit IMDb's Parents Guide Help to learn more.

beth_7689556

7 Messages

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130 Points

Thank you for the prompt reply. To be honest I probably will never be the type to provide parental advisory content because for example in the case of Mirror Mirror I got to the voo doo ey bit and turned it off (sorry I called it sleeping beauty by mistake before)... So I'm one of the slightly more sensitive types that wouldn't be able to provide consistent detailed info. Anyway, in making my suggestion, I was thinking it would great if people entering advisory info could be prompted to think of any instances of magic or paranormal whether frightening or not. My reasoning is that, judging that a scene of magic or paranormal stuff is frightening and therefore listing it in the advisory, to me is like asking the contributor to judge whether a kissing or sex scene was immoral, before listing it in the advisory, but as it says the purpose of the advisory isn't to judge for others what's right or wrong, rather to simply relate the facts, know what I mean? So I feel if the only potential category for magical or paranormal contents to go under is the "frightening" section, then it's kind of like saying that "white" magic or occult or paranormal content that isn't frightening, is OK, and that no parent could possibly object to that... And yet that's not how all parents feel. Just like not all parents are happy for their kids to participate in Halloween. I know many who feel the same way, in the five countries I've lived in throughout my life. Especially some places in Africa where people have made great efforts to free themselves from demon influence and so even owning or watching a supposedly innocent children's movie with such things in it can have detrimental effects. Obviously some movies give away their paranormal content simply in the title or the synopsis and so discerning parents can know even to avoid anything that's littered with magic if that's their choice, like Harry Potter or Hotel Transylvania or even Frozen... But some movies, for example one of the Wallace and Gromit cartoons I can't remember which one, had a random scene with ghosts in it, which may not have been alluded to in the general synopsis and I don't think it was necessarily frightening etc. I hope you can see where I'm coming from, and thanks again for providing a forum for suggestions and all the great work that's already being done.

9 years ago

beth_7689556

7 Messages

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130 Points

9 years ago

I was just thinking too, perhaps the category I'm proposing could extend to elements of fantasy/or things that aren't real like fairies or monsters etc... For example in Peter Pan movies, the idea that you can jump out your bedroom window and fly by thinking happy thoughts is perhaps an idea some parents may decide to hold off on exposing their very young children to, if it will mean having to do much explaining that it's not real. Or monsters inc, the thought that monsters come out of closets to scare children...

dan_dassow

Champion

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19.3K Messages

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475.6K Points

9 years ago

beth,

Something else you can use to avoid films that contain magic and the occult are the plot keywords.

For example:
Frozen (I) (2013) Plot Keywords
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294629/keywords
Example keywords: magic, near death experience

Mirror Mirror (I) (2012) Plot Keywords
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1667353/keywords
Example keywords: magical potion, magical mirror, evil witch, wicked witch, witch, witchcraft, dark power, enchantress, magic

IMDb allows users with accounts to vote on whether specific plot keywords are relevant.

You can also search for films with specific keywords for plot elements you wish to avoid.
For instance:
magic
http://www.imdb.com/search/keyword?keywords=magic

You can do a keyword search by selecting Keywords in the drop down menu between the search bar and yellow spy glass at the top IMDb pages.

beth_7689556

7 Messages

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130 Points

That's a great suggestion, thank you so much I didn't realize you could do a search to filter out results with certain plot keywords. Ingenius! I will try it next time.

9 years ago

beth_7689556

7 Messages

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130 Points

Ok I just clicked on the link but it seems to guide me to all the movies that are exactly about magic. Please if you don't mind, can u let me know the steps for how to get it to give me results that filter movies with magic OUT?

9 years ago

beth_7689556

7 Messages

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130 Points

I tried putting -magic but it also seems to have isolated results of movies that are exactly about magic... Boo hoo... If it could work it's a fantastic idea

9 years ago

dan_dassow

Champion

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19.3K Messages

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475.6K Points

paHi beth,

You were close. IMDb uses the ! symbol to indicate not. "!" is also know as a bang in computer parlance.

Instead of a keyword search, you will need to use an Advanced Title Search.

Here are some examples:

Most Popular without "Magic" Feature Films
http://www.imdb.com/search/title?!keywords=magic&title_type=feature

Most Popular without "Near Death Experience" Feature Films
http://www.imdb.com/search/title?!keywords=near-death-experience&title_type=feature

Most Popular without "Magical Potion" Feature Films
http://www.imdb.com/search/title?!keywords=magical-potion&title_type=feature

Most Popular without "Magical Mirror" Feature Films
http://www.imdb.com/search/title?!keywords=magical-mirror&title_type=feature

Although you can include many keywords in a search, you cannot exclude more than one keyword.

- - -

How to Create an Advanced Title Search

From any IMDb page select Advanced Search to get to the Advance Search page. On the Advance Search page select Advanced Title Search to get to the Advanced Title Search page.

Example: Find films without the keyword magic.
1. Go to the Advanced Title Search page.
2. Select Feature Film under Title Type.
3. Enter magic in the Keywords search, then select magic from the choices.
4. Click the yellow Search button at the bottom of the page.

This produces this search:

Most Popular "Magic" Feature Films
http://www.imdb.com/search/title?keywords=magic&title_type=feature

Add the ! in front of keywords to get:

Most Popular without "Magic" Feature Films
http://www.imdb.com/search/title?!keywords=magic&title_type=feature

You will notice this produces a list of 333,010 titles.

You can refine this search to only include family films, with at least 5,000 votes and a rating of at least 6.0.

1. Go to the Advanced Title Search page.
2. Select Feature Film under Title Type.
3. Select 6.0 in the first box under User Rating.
4. Enter 5000 in the first box under Number of Votes.
5. Select Family under Genres.
6. Enter magic in the Keywords search, then select magic from the choices.
7. Click the yellow Search button at the bottom of the page.

This produces this search:

Most Popular "Magic" Family Feature Films With User Rating Between 6.0 And 10 and At Least 5,000 Votes
http://www.imdb.com/search/title?genres=family&keywords=magic&num_votes=5000,&title_type...,

Add the ! in front of keywords to get:

Most Popular without "Magic" Family Feature Films With User Rating Between 6.0 And 10 and At Least 5,000 Votes
376 titles
http://www.imdb.com/search/title?genres=family&!keywords=magic&num_votes=5000,&title_typ...,

Note: I'm a long time user of IMDb, not a staff member.

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9 years ago