Disney+ has officially debuted its parental controls. And it looks like the main role of these settings is to keep the kids from watching Jon Bernthal kill a hundred people across The Punisher—and Daredevil season two. The streaming platform brought over seven of its Marvel TV shows, and most of them are very different in tone than their MCU counterparts. While it was pretty shocking that they weren’t headed to Hulu, it makes a lot of sense that the company wants to keep its Marvel content in one spot. And even more so that it would use the opportunity to unveil a very detailed set of parental control settings. When Disney+ first launched its full catalog was available on the standard-setting. And one other specific setting was available for kids. But now, even more options have arrived to narrow what users can see on the platform. Because yes, TV-MA shows now live on Disney+ and R-Rated entries like Deadpool, Deadpool 2, and Logan are making their way onto the platform starting July 22.
At last parental controls are here. And this is what it means for those logging into Disney+.
What New Content Settings Are Available With Disney+’s Parental Controls?
For starters, there are two major profile settings on Disney+: regular and kids. The latter profile contains just the younger content, from animated films to Disney Junior and Disney Channel staples. The account holder can also set an “exit question” to further keep kids from accessing more mature content. This setting requires anyone trying to leave a kids’ account to answer a question in order to do so.
But it’s the regular profile content settings that get interesting with new parental controls. There are a lot of content settings to choose from. A whopping nine of them. Of course, they start with the youngest level content: TV-Y; TV-Y7;TV-Y7-FV;G,T-VG; PG,TV-PG—which is more or less the kind of content on the kids’ profile setting.
The remaining settings are PG-13, TV-14, R, TV-MA. Prior to activating the parental controls settings, the standard Disney+ profile fell into the PG-13/TV-14 category. It housed The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and West Side Story next to friendlier fare like Encanto. Now when you log into Disney+ and activate the parental control settings, you can flip to TV-MA, the highest setting. (TV-MA is the R-rating for TV and its highest maturity rating. For reference, Euphoria is rated TV-MA.)
What Disney+ Content Falls Under R and TV-MA?
While I want to talk about it forever, Disney does not want young eyes to see Vincent D’Onofrio take a guy’s head off with a car door in Daredevil. (However, they can see him wearing a Hawaiian shirt in Hawkeye.) At launch, there’s only one major difference between Disney+’s previous standard-setting and the R and TV-MA setting. And, of course, it’s Marvel’s TV fare (previously housed on Netflix.) Daredevil, Jessica Jones, The Punisher, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Defenders are the only shows to land above the TV-14 rating.
Agents of SHIELD, which just joined the platform as well, rests comfortably in TV-14 land. (It was on network TV, after all.) And for other recent shows, it looks like Moon Knight and Obi-Wan Kenobi fall under TV-14 as well. Deadpool, Deadpool 2, and Logan will begin to stream on the platform starting July 22 and they will be rated R.
How You Can Change Your Parental Controls Settings On Disney+
If all this talk of parental controls has reminded you there are some profiles you need to amend, here’s how you can do it. Simply hover over your user icon on the platform and select “Edit Profiles” from the menu that appears. Then go to the profile you’d like to edit. Don’t worry, Disney+ will ask you to enter your password before making any changes. Once you do that, you’ll see a new “Content Rating” section. Clicking on that will bring you all the possible parental control options you can choose from. Happy toggling.
A More Mature Future for Disney+
Seeing R-rated (or TV-MA for that matter) associated with Disney+ surely raises some eyebrows. Famously Disney has never released an R-rated movie under its own brand. But it has a whole lot of subsidiary studios—especially since acquiring Fox. Currently, the first R-rated movies are making their way onto Disney+. And it certainly looks like the Mouse House streamer will continue to branch out. Does that mean Hulu will soon join Disney+ and create a US counterpart to the streaming platform’s Star global brand? (Yep, that means people around the world watched Pam & Tommy on Disney+.) Who knows, really. Hulu still boasts a whole lot of content, even if Disney has big plans for its more mature content on Disney+. But it’s food for thought.
Disney’s making a lot of changes to its streaming platform in the coming months, and I know I am very curious to see what it has in store.
