Exactly. Although it's only fairly recently that films with sex in started getting lower certificates than 18.
I think the real difference is that because they wouldn't pass big budget blockbusters except as 18s for violence reasons, studios and cinemas still wanted to show them, so an 18 doesn't kill a movie, to an extent it can help--it shows it's for adults, bit like having an R rating is needed for some films in the US.
But because mainstream big budget films are 18s, there's no stigma, so we can get what we want with just an 18 slapped on it.
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andrewducker) wrote2010-07-22 12:00 pm
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I think the real difference is that because they wouldn't pass big budget blockbusters except as 18s for violence reasons, studios and cinemas still wanted to show them, so an 18 doesn't kill a movie, to an extent it can help--it shows it's for adults, bit like having an R rating is needed for some films in the US.
But because mainstream big budget films are 18s, there's no stigma, so we can get what we want with just an 18 slapped on it.