Media group has called for a rethink of how children’s movies are classified after recent scary releases

What films should children be allowed to see? Recent movies have one media group saying changes are needed – and should be legally enforceable.

Children are being allowed into screenings of movies that are far too graphic for their ages, a child safety group has warned.

It has prompted a call to revamp Australia’s movie classification system to create narrower age categories that are enforceable by law to stop impressionable children being exposed to violent or sexualised content.

Children and Media Australia chief executive Barbara Biggins said a number of recently released films that were classified as PG or M – advisory guidelines that do not stop young children from watching them – were inappropriate for many kids.

Under CMA’s plan, the rating system, which has not changed since the 1990s, would be replaced with five age categories – 5, 9, 12, 16 and 18+. Age restrictions from 12 would be legally enforced.

CMA is also calling for scary content to be considered in the rating system.

Ms Biggins said a slew of popular recent films, all rated M, should have been banned for children under 12, including The Batman, Spider-Man: No Way Home and The Matrix Resurrections.

Some PG-rated films, including Ghostbusters: Afterlife, should also have been restricted, she said.

Phoebe and Podcast fire a proton packin Columbia Pictures' Ghostbusters: afterlife.

Scene from movie Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Picture: Sony

CMA president Professor Elizabeth Handsley said an “evidence-based” rating system that considered children’s development was needed.

“The main thing is violence, particularly at the M level and even at MA15+ because parents can take their young children if they want to,” Professor Handsley said.

“It’s not that it makes children violence themselves but it can desensitise them to violence and foster an attitude that violence is an appropriate way to resolve conflict.”

“It can also give children an inflated view of how much violence and aggression there is in the world around them and they can develop an overly scary view of the world.”

She said similar systems to the one proposed by her organisation were in place around the world, including in the Netherlands.

“They’ve got a good system to make sure their scheme keeps up with developments in science and they review it regularly based on new developments.”

The federal government conducted a review of the classification system in May 2020 but its findings have not been released.

A Communications Department spokesman said the federal government was “considering” the findings and had “already progressed key elements of media sector reform, including enacting the Online Safety Act”.