While we’re used to making fun of the MPAA’s ratings notes in the U.S., the U.K.’s BBFC is just as specific at times and just found itself at the center of a surprising controversy.
The ratings board originally gave Paddington, a film based on the beloved children’s book character, the same rating The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 received, a 12A, due to “mild sex references.”
When he heard that, Paddington author Michael Bond, who hasn’t seen the movie, told The Daily Mail that he’d be “very upset” if the movie does have “mild bad language.”
“I might not sleep well tonight,” Bond told the paper. “I can’t imagine what the sex references are. It doesn’t enter into it with the books, certainly.”
After that interview, Entertainment Weekly reports that the BBFC did change its wording, so the rating will say “innuendo” instead of “mild sex references.” The BBFC notes that the film contains a scene where a man in woman’s clothing is “flirted with by another man.”
Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville is the man dressed as a woman in the scene and he told the BBC that the rating was “hilarious.”
“I was scratching my head thinking 'what are the censors talking about?’” Bonneville said. “There were four and five year olds watching it the other day laughing uproariously, so I don't think it's going to damage any young children - or indeed any 75 year olds.”
Now, Paddington is rated PG, noting that the film contains "dangerous behaviour, mild threat, innuendo, [and] infrequent mild bad language.”
Paddington comes out on Nov. 28 in the U.K., but won’t hit theaters in the U.S. until Jan. 16.
image of Hugh Bonneville courtesy of INFphoto.com