[Nerdspresso] 'Cocaine Bear' and the thrill of a first R-rated movie

By Jeff Stanford, Special to Southpoint Access

You never forget the first R-rated movie you saw in a theater. That’s probably not a major rite of passage for today’s generation, who can stream any number of forbidden delights as long as those pesky parental controls aren’t engaged.

For a sheltered suburban waif like me in the early 1980s, however, seeing a movie that required a parent or adult guardian for anyone under 17 was like riding a unicorn. I fondly remember watching my first R-rated movie at Northgate Cinemas in 1983.

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Southpoint AccessJeff Stanford

It was “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” and I saw it with my mom, who called the theater beforehand to find out exactly why it had received that rating. Thankfully, the 16-year-old in the box office was feeling generous that day. My mom accepted their review as valid enough justification to subject her innocent baby boy to the restricted adult humor of star Chevy Chase, writer John Hughes, and director Harold Ramis. It was my moviegoing bar mitzvah.

I was rocking major mojo the next day when I pulled up on my yellow Huffy bike, ready to spoil every aspect of this flick for my eager pals. Looking back, I’m still surprised my mom took me to see it. We had a strict rule for moviegoing in our house: Nothing racier than PG, and then only with that suggested parental guidance. All four times I saw “Star Wars” in a theater, my dad was sitting next to me. We weren’t a family to spit in the face of the MPAA.