“Excuse me.”

I looked up from my bag of popcorn. My eyes met the dark face of a movie theater usher. “You don’t belong here,” he said.

Ugh, I thought. I’ve been caught. I picked up my things and glanced at the giant screen as the lights dimmed in preparation for “Slumdog Millionaire.” The usher cleared his throat, indicating his impatience with my stalling. I got up and he showed me to the auditorium next door where “Valkyrie,” the movie I had paid for, was showing.

I later asked a friend of mine who was old enough to see the film what in it would call for an R rating. “Some violence,” he said. “But in this day and age, R-rated movies should have gore.” He also cited some scenes with hard language that might have given this critically acclaimed love story such a harsh rating.

He was right. According to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the film was rated R “for some violence, disturbing images and language.” Harsh language is the most ridiculous reason for an R rating. Curses may be distasteful, but we use them every day and they’re a part of our language. In order for a film to receive an R rating for language, it must contain more than one use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words as an expletive. However, if the word is used in a sexual context even once, the film is stamped with an R.

Violence, though, has to be extreme to receive such a rating. Gore, as my friend noted, is one of the criteria. “Saving Private Ryan,” for example, was rated R for “intense prolonged realistically graphic sequences of war violence.” A scene where a soldier’s arm was torn off was deemed too realistic, as opposed to a scene in PG-13-rated “Valkyrie,” where soldiers were superficially executed with no blood shown. The scenes were violent nonetheless, even without blood. But the realism, all the gore and horror, is part of the art, and people should realize and tell kids that it is all only entertainment.

These ridiculous ratings are determined by a Ratings Board consisting of a chairman (chosen by the MPAA) and a group of 10 to 13 other parents of school-aged children (chosen by the chairman). Together, from their screening room in Encino, the justices of political correctness control what can or cannot be seen and thus, determine the success of a film in the box office in a culture that is dependent on the media for information.

A 2006 documentary film, “This Film Is Not Yet Rated,” revealed disparities in the rating system such as the board’s harsher treatment of homosexual content and independent films. Kirby Dick, the film’s director, also found that raters are deliberately chosen for their lack of expertise and that most of the parents had children over the age of 18 or no children at all. The appeals board, the entity that producers can flock to if they feel a film’s rating is unjustified, was found to be made up of mostly movie chain and studio executives and, strangely, two priests.

The MPAA’s attempts are futile in this modern age of crass television shows, constant war zone coverage and easily accessible pornography. Some of the ratings films receive are just absurd in today’s standards. “Alien vs. Predator” was perhaps unique in its PG-13 rating for slime while “Twister” was given the same rating for “intense depiction of very bad weather.”

It’s also disappointing that many must-see classics were given the R rating. In the last decade, six of the 10 films that won Best Picture were rated R and I’ll bet you the next one will be rated R too. Heavily acclaimed classics like “The Godfather,” “Schindler’s List” and even the film adaption of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” were also restricted. Violent films, yes, but the age restrictions for R-rated movies should only act as recommendations rather than be enforced. Who’s to say a group of whiney parents can judge whether a teen is mentally prepared to watch a movie?

The MPAA can rate a writer’s artistic vision before it even gets into the hands of the producers. The screenplay of “The Panic in Needle Park” was initially rated X, comparable to today’s NC-17. Filmmakers had to revise many of the drug addiction and sexuality parts to gain an R rating and make the film marketable. It’s a shame when one’s work has to face the red pen.

We read all these great books filled with violence, sex, cursing, gore and both physical and psychological torture in middle school and high school English classes. Jerzy Kosinski’s “The Painted Bird,” a book I read in my sophomore English class, was perhaps more graphic than anything I will ever see in any film, with vivid descriptions of rape, incest and bestiality.

But all literary extremes aside, we’re exposed to more cursing, violence and sensuality in our daily lives than in movies. If they’re a part of life, why should they be censored in films meant to capture our lives as realistically as possible?

I’m hoping to successfully sneak into “Frost/Nixon” next. So what if Frank Langella drops a few F-bombs or if Michael Sheen is in a sex scene. I’m watching it because it’s a good movie. I’m there for its historical significance, the intriguing plot and the exceptional acting. That’s the only way a movie, or any piece of artistic work, should be rated.