I’ve learned a lot about how films are rated through my research. I’ve learned that they’re rated by a board of parents, as opposed to a board of film experts which is what I previously believed. I’ve also learned these parents have no special training in any field that could possibly help them do this monumental task of applying ratings to films which will ultimately influence the movie goings of thousand upon thousands of kids and teenagers. And although the current movie rating system works, it doesn’t take into account the developmental stages of children. I’ve also found that the movie ratings board tends to bias itself towards major studio films rather that independent ones, giving them either lower ratings, or very specific notes on how to make their films meet the rating specifications to be shown in theaters.
“The MPAA board's arbitrary behavior and its bias toward mainstream studio films are sharply illustrated by
In the MPAA’s defense they are attempting to make their ratings more transparent to parents, as they have recently added descriptions to the ratings on movie posters and such. They’ve added things like “Mild drug use”, “strong language”, and “Swashbuckling action” (Seriously, it’s on the poster for Shrek the Third. What the hell is swashbuckling action?). These ratings however don’t give parents a good
idea as to how much language/drug use/ sex/ or violence is in a movie. In my paper I proposed a rating system based on a ten point scale. For instance an extremely violent movie would have a violence rating of ten, a low sexual rating and perhaps a high profanity rating. It’s simple and it could possibly give parents a better insight as to what their children are seeing.
MPAA website:
Film ratings website(A website with pretty much every movie ever and their ratings)
3 comments:
A point scale sounds like a very logical approach that the lay-citizen would understand in regards to content. It is very peculiar to know that the MPAA isn't run by-study and is instead under a diet of people who feel that they can somehow police content just because they had to change diapers at some point in their lives...it's not as if hundreds of millions of Americans have not done the same.
Interestingly, the MPAA has even been responsible for actively hunting down 'issues' from piracy to even hiring security in some theaters with the false pretense that they're ensuring the safety of the movie industry. I fail to see why we would even need such an organization of spinsters when it would be so much easier to implement mandatory content-listing laws that do not infringe upon film-maker's creativity.
That's really interesting that parents are the ones who rate movies. I had no idea! That seems a little strange to me... I am curious how they choose a good representative group of parents for the whole population of movie-goers?
I like your idea of a 10-point scale. I think it would be more helpful that the PG, PG-13, R, NC-17 rating. A little more leniency with the ratings would go a long way.
Although movie ratings seem like a good idea, sometimes I feel like they are just there to please parents. I mean, if a kid wants to watch a R movie, even if he or she isn't allowed into the movie theater, they can go online and download it for free. If a 13 year old boy wants to see a naked lady, he can get online and download porn for free. Violence? That one too... but it's easier because just turn on the TV to any news station and there will be stories about school shootings, murders, and rapes. I guess that is a whole different issue though...
This is just a wondering.. Can we trust movie rating since the movie are rating by parents, but not by the professional? I agree with Leah, it is so easy to get a move online for free now. There's really no other way that we can pretent children to watch any kind of movie they want..
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