Watch out for mild peril

I've written before about the funny phrases used to warn parents about material in movies that is potentially too intense for their children, but I think I've come across a new winner.

We have this channel on our TV that functions as something of a default, because our antenna is broken so we can't get actual TV. There are pay packages we could subscribe to, but since we don't, our TV sits on this channel that gives a succession of trailers for movies available on pay-per-view. Some of them are mainstream, many of them I've never heard of, and most of them seem to be in some way inappropriate for my children, who are usually exposed to a minute or so of this stuff before they bring up Netflix or YouTube.

Each trailer is introduced by a short description of the Australian rating for the movie and the reason for the rating. And here is what it had to say about Mary Poppins Returns:

"Rated G for a scene of very mild peril."

Ha ha.

First of all, if something is rated G, do you really have to give a warning about potential objectionable content at all? Shouldn't it say "Rated G because no one in their right mind could possibly be scared, disgusted or offended by this material"?

But if you are giving the warning, isn't "mild peril" sufficient? "Very" is just calling attention to your own ridiculousness.

And if you are giving the warning, wouldn't this be more appropriate? "Rated G for fairly intense anguish and anger by a parent over the death of his wife/mother of his children"? That would better quantify the reasons why you might not want to bring a young child to Mary Poppins Returns.

The funny thing is I also have trouble narrowing down which one scene they deemed to contain peril. I count at least two. There's the scene where the children are being chased in the carriage while inside the design on the vase, and there's also the scene where the lamplighters are climbing Big Ben in order to turn back the time by a couple minutes to meet a bank deadline. Both scenes could reasonably be considered perilous, mildly or otherwise.

Then of course there's the peril involved with standing in a shop that turns upside down and floating into the sky while holding on to a balloon, but I guess "fantasy peril" doesn't count.

I noticed this just after watching the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones on Saturday night. Something that contained only "very mild peril" seemed like a nice change of pace.

Instead I watched Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, in which a man gets pulled apart by the roots of a tree.