Kicking It

Here's a headline on the Big Hollywood blog: "Slow Start for ‘Kick-Ass’ Shows Perils of Pandering."

But this gets it wrong. Kick-Ass doesn't pander. In fact, it's pretty uncompromising. Based on a comic book (how closely I don't know), the movie includes some pretty brutal violence and plenty of profanity. If they'd been pandering, they would have changed this movie, which has obvious appeal to teens, to get a PG-13 rating. They'd have toned down the violence, cut the swearing, and made the eleven-year-old girl who causes so much mayhem a bit older.

For films Hollywood hopes to have mainstream appeal, it's pretty common to make such changes to get the proper rating. Sure, sometimes putting in extra explosions, sex, etc., for their own sake is pandering, but pandering is just as likely to mean taking them out.