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The Plugged In Show, Episode 142: R-rated Disney: A Conversation with PTC’s Melissa Henson. (Plus, Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters)

Disney and Deadpool

LISTEN TO THE PLUGGED IN SHOW, EPISODE 142

They said they wouldn’t. But now, Disney+ has added R-rated content onto its platform. Now, Deadpool and Logan stand alongside Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. And while parents do have tools to help filter out those R-rated films, many moms and dads are still pretty upset with the Mouse House’s decision.

They have a right to be concerned, according to Melissa Henson, program director for the Parents Television and Media Council. Our own Adam Holz talks with Melissa about Disney’s recent about face—and just how it might impact families.

Speaking of families, we then dive into a discussion about Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, Pure Flix’s first original film to be rolled out exclusively on its own streaming platform. (I doubt we’ll see much R-rated content there.) Emily Clark reviewed the film for us, and she’ll tell us all about it.

And, of course, we then dive into another round of Pop Culture connection, where I’m pretty sure I lost again.

So, check out our discussion on Disney, daughters and dastardly gamesmanship, will you? Then tell us what you think on Facebook and Instagram, or write us an email at [email protected]. And, as is our way, we’ve included links to everything we talked about below.

Additional Resources:

paul-asay
Paul Asay

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

3 Responses

  1. -Very disappointed with your first segment. You Spent a lot of time venting outrage about Disney+ adding mature content, but you never mentioned that they also added parental controls at the same time to keep the mature rated shows and movies from showing up for younger viewers. The mature content can only be accessed if the parental content setting is set to its highest level. Leaving this information out paints an inaccurate and misleading picture of what Disney has done; not good journalism or good optics in general to overlook. And It’s not like Disney+ is worry free even without the content either; as pluggedin itself has mentioned multiple times with several past podcasts, talking about the shows aimed at kids that have started to contain LGBT content.

  2. -The US is the only country Disney+ didn’t have mature content in until recently. The Star category in other countries such as the UK has always contained more mature content. The UK Disney+ has had American Horror Story and the like on it pretry much from launch. And plenty of folks that don’t have children subscribe to Disney+, not to mention the fact that they allow you to set rating restrictions for each individual profile. Adults should be able to enjoy their programming on Disney+ too. Your children aren’t the only people who watch Disney+ and the decisions the app makes about what it carries shouldn’t be based around them. Disney is trying to make a service that appeals to the whole family and that includes the adults. Streaming services are essentially the new cable or satellite and those both had channels that weren’t necessarily for your kids. Just set the rating restrictions to what you want them to be and move on.

    1. -I also think I should probably mention that the R and Mature rated programming isn’t enabled be default. The default, I believe, is PG-13 or maybe TV-14. I clearly remember when the R and MA stuff came out that I had to go into my profile settings and raise the highest rating that would be shown on my account, which required my password to lock in. You have to essentially opt in to access the mature content. This really is a non-issue.