love-is-strange-john-alfred.jpg

Dangerous characters: John Lithgow and Alfred Molina as the loving couple in 'Love Is Strange'

(SONY PICTURES CLASSICS)

The MPAA movie ratings are supposed to provide information on a movie's content, so parents can decide whether or not it's suitable for their children.

But what kind of information are they really providing? And what are they assuming we want to protect our children from?

On Friday, "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For" will be released in a wide number of theaters. It features nudity, sexual situations and substance abuse. Every woman in it is a stripper, a prostitute or a murderer. There is violence and graphic gore, including one scene of a man having his eye plucked out and another of a man having his fingers broken with a pliers. It is rated R.

That day, "Jersey Shore Massacre" also reaches theaters. It features nudity, sexual situations, substance abuse and ethnic and racial slurs. There is violence and graphic gore, including one scene of a woman being disemboweled, another of a naked woman getting her breasts sliced open and one of a man having his hands fed into a wood chipper. It is rated R.

Also opening is "Love Is Strange." There is no nudity. There are no sexual situations. The drug or alcohol material mostly consists of adults having wine with dinner, or cocktails at a bar. There is no violence or gore. There are several scenes of men kissing, and two scenes of a gay couple sleeping together, fully clothed, in bed. It is rated R.

If there's an equivalence among these three films, and their equal unsuitability for anyone under 17, it's lost on me — and, I suspect, on anyone but the censors at the MPAA.

Not only is there nothing violent in "Love Is Strange," there's not even anything explicit. It is about as mild and mainstream a portrayal of gay life as you can imagine. Ben, played by John Lithgow, is a 71-year-old retiree. George, played by Alfred Molina, is a music teacher at a Catholic school. In the film, they have been together for nearly 40 years (until, in a unfair and sudden reversal of fortune, they lose their apartment).

It's a simple human story. And it is very hard to imagine that — if it starred, say, Robert Duvall and Jane Fonda as a similar long-time couple suddenly facing homelessness — it would be lumped in with movies crammed full of queasily stylish sexism and sickening torture porn.

(Oh, and by the way, that last "Transformers" movie — which memorably featured a man burnt to a crisp — was rated PG-13. So was "The Expendables 3," a film whose body count would require a calculator.)

Yes, "Love Is Strange" features some vulgar words, as do all the other R-rated films here. (In fact, the only reason given for the rating assigned "Love Is Strange" is "language.")

But in other films, on other subjects, the MPAA has sometimes shown considerable leeway on language , depending on context. And even this film's few strong words aren't spoken with violence, nor do they approach the wall-to-wall obscenity of some crime movies.

This is a gentle, if often heartbreaking story about two loving men in a long-time committed relationship. What on earth is in it that so horrifies the MPAA?

I'm sorry. I think I just answered my own question.

FOLLOW STAR-LEDGER ENTERTAINMENT: TWITTER • FACEBOOK