Disney Plus TV-MA: How to Change Parental Controls

Today is the day that lots and lots of Marvel fans have been waiting for. Okay, fans have been waiting, like, two weeks since Netflix pulled all of their Marvel heroes shows from streaming. But still — this is a momentous occasion because there’s even more Marvel Comics TV content available to stream on Disney+. This includes (formerly) Netflix original series like Daredevil and Jessica Jones as well as all 7 seasons of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. But even if you have no interest in these Marvel shows, your Disney+ experience is going to change. That’s because with the addition of Marvel’s Defenders shows, Disney+ has installed parental control settings that every subscriber’s gonna have to set up if they want to watch everything available on the platform.

This is a good thing, BTW, because the ex-Netflix shows… weren’t exactly family friendly. There’s lots of cursing, violence, and sex in these shows that go way, way beyond what we’ve seen in Hawkeye or Loki. So if you want to rewatch these shows or if you want to check them out for the first time, or if you just want to make sure you can stream everything Disney+ has to offer, here’s a guide to setting up parental controls on Disney+.

When you visit Disney+ for the first time after the parental control change, it should automatically guide you through updating your settings — like this:

Click CONTINUE and it will ask you to choose FULL CATALOG (meaning all of the R-rated and TV-MA content) or NOT NOW (meaning “stop hassling me, Disney, I just want to watch Turning Red again”).

If you click FULL CATALOG, you’ll get all the adult content. Disney+ will also prompt you to create a PROFILE PIN that will lock this account from anyone who doesn’t have the 4-digit PIN.

If you click NOT NOW, Disney+ will default to the TV-14 setting. That’s pretty much where it was prior to this expansion of content (U.S. Agent beheading a guy with Captain America’s shield: suitable for 14-year-olds but not 13-year-olds).

But what if you click NOT NOW and want to update your parental settings later? Go to EDIT PROFILES…

Select which profile you want to give full TV-MA access…

Scroll down and select CONTENT RATING…

And then you can choose the profile’s parental rating. Note that TV-G, TV-PG, TV-14, and TV-MA apply to all of the TV series and G, PG, PG-13, and R apply to the movies. Select TV-MA if you want to watch all the Defenders shows.

Note that this whole process starts up anytime you change profiles. So even if you’re already on Disney+ and you switch over to another profile…

… you’ll start this whole journey over again from the beginning. Also note that during this whole process, Disney+ will give you the option to change all of the profiles’ parental controls at once.

When you have access to TV-MA content, you’ll find all the Defenders stuff waiting for you.

For those curious about whether or not the old Netflix / Marvel shows are MCU canon, Disney+ has an opinion on that. Instead of putting all this stuff into the official MCU timeline section on the Marvel homepage, all of these shows have their own section.

Do with that what you will.

And just a word of warning to any kids out there who think they can sneakily alter their parental control settings so they can hear the Beatles drop the F-bomb while recording “Get Back”: Disney+ sends a lot of emails about parental control changes to whoever owns the account.

You can’t fool Disney+!

Stream Daredevil on Disney+