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in the sense that they should be kept out of the hands of young people - like Aron said, there are some R-rated movies that probably should've been PG-13, and there are some PG-13 movies that probably should've been rated R. Also, when it comes to movies/video games/etc, it seems silly to treat an 8 year old the same as a 15 year old in regards to content - a game like Halo or a movie like Collateral is probably too much for an 8 year old, but most 15 year olds could probably handle them just fine.
One thing that's worth remembering is that rating systems for movies/games/TV shows are there so that the industries can police themselves, rather then have the government come in and police them. If ratings systems had the force of the law behind them, then ultimately it would be up to the government to determine which movies/games/etc got which ratings (granted, the government probably couldn't be any worse at it then the MPAA, but it still smacks of censorship). Also, a lot of teenagers wouldn't be able to get titles which actually aren't bad for them, because the store/rental place owners would be afraid to rent the titles out (when it comes to R-rated movies and M-rated games, a lot of places have "selective enforcement" - they won't rent or sell them to little kids, but they'll rent or sell most of them to teenagers (I rented R-rated movies all the time when I was a teen, and it was no big deal)).
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