We try to watch the movie ourselves first. In our case, difficult child 3 is cautious about being exposed to stuff he shouldn't be watching - he covers his eyes when South Park is on! The older ones are all adults, they have seen it all and will tell me what they think about the content, for difficult child 3. If there's any doubt, we watch it too, then we watch it with difficult child 3.
Some mild sexual stuff, such as Ranma 1/2, one of the kids' favourite animés, which has some animation nudity involving bare breasts (no detail) in bathing scenes which are necessary for the plot - we let him watch but with supervision. The character in that cartoon has a curse on him, he turns into a girl when hot water lands on him or he is immersed in hot water (as in a Japanese bath - and they are communal baths). The story is more about the confusion in the other characters, as well as the stress of having to live with such a curse. A girl in the household likes the main character (the boy) but finds herself confiding this to the strange girl sharing her bath. Apart from the necessary nudity in the story, there is nothing sexual, not even a kiss.
And yet - it's rated as our equivalent of PG13+.
Our ratings are advisory only, until we get to R rating, which is "show ID, nobody under 18 allowed to watch it" or X, which is not for public screening anywhere, only available for private purchase and then only under very strict conditions - ID must be shown. I just had a look on our shelves, we have some very strange standards. Family Guy is M, same as Ranma. "For Mature Audiences Only". "From Hell" is MA15+, which means parental guidance recommended under the age of 15. Other things we have at MA15+ include movies I would not have thought were a problem. Other films rated G, I wouldn't let difficult child 3 watch. "Bring It On" is rated M, but I'm not sure difficult child 3 could handle it.
I do think it also related to the child and what they can handle. difficult child 3 needs to watch films that are fairly gentle (stylised violence only, preferably slapstick and keep it to a minimum), with a positive ending and some thought-provoking social situations in between. The Japanese stuff is interesting because it is so different, socially. It gives us a good opportunity to explain cultural differences to difficult child 3.
We also see cultural differences between us and the US, in terms of what is acceptable and what isn't; what is sexual and what isn't. For those who remember the Seventies, did you ever watch "Solid Gold" on TV? It was a pop music countdown show coming to Australia out of the US, where the top songs of the week were selected from and performed, often by a 'cover' group, with the backing dancers, the "Solid Gold Dancers", doing their stuff in the background. No video clips; just the show, like a cabaret. Sounds innocent - but my mother turned it off because the dancers, despite having no navels showing and discreet cleavage, were wearing leotards which revealed almost all their behinds, like a thong. Back in those days, navels were not permitted to be shown on US TV, as far as we could determine. On "I Dream of Jeannie", Barbara Eden's navel was covered by a high waistline, although her cleavage was very much on display.
In video clips, we see lots of behinds being shaken at the camera and it makes no sense to us - our culture is almost all cleavage. Or topless. In summer, a lot of our beaches will have topless girls on them in varying quantity. A few beaches take it all off. But a skimpy behind - our blokes don't seem to be into it.
Just an example.
The Japanese apparently consider the nape of a woman's neck to be highly erotic. I saw a Japanese calendar once, handed to me in hushed whispers. It featured women in geisha make-up, mostly head and shoulders, from behind or part-profile from behind. In its own way just as depersonalising as porn, but nothing that Western society would consider sexual.
We organised a pyjama party for easy child when she was 11. We hired a lot of films we hadn't seen, based partly on the rating and partly on easy child's clamourings because the title looked interesting. One film, "Killer Clowns From Outer Space", sounded like it would be so ghastly as to be fun. it actually had the kids terrified and they couldn't get to sleep. So our moral - always watch it first, in case it backfires.
Marg