COLUMN: The ratings game
On Nov. 1, 1968, the Motion Picture Association of America perpetrated one of the greatest lies of all time on the American public – the rating system. Jack Valenti, president of the MPAA, in an effort to keep the government from doing it for him, cooked up the idea of a new ratings system designed to keep kids and conservatives away from the explicit content that was finding its way into mainstream film-making.
While the intentions of Valenti and his cohorts may have been well-meaning at first (keeping the government out of the private sector is almost always a good idea), over time the ratings system has become more and more a marketing tool instead of an informative one. Studios routinely tweak films with questionable content just enough to squeak them by an appeals board and achieve a more family-friendly rating.
Knowing this, I find it miraculous parents trust the system at all. Essentially what they have done is put their trust in the industry’s ability to regulate itself, seemingly absolving themselves of the responsibility of making informed choices.
This creates an obvious problem. Parents are relying on a conglomerate of Hollywood studio execs to decide what their little Backstreets and Brittneys should be able to watch. Can they really believe the films will be rated with their children’s best interests in mind? Today, it’s impossible to really know what’s in a movie without logging on to a Web site like www.Screenit.com and reading a play-by-play of every objectionable scene. But by then you might as well have seen the film.
Take for example Ben Stiller’s recent film “Zoolander.” I’ve spent more memorable evenings listening to people burping in Internet chat rooms. But despite the films stupidity, I will never forget the love/sex scene that takes place between two male models, a female reporter, a midget and a tribal warrior. The uncut version of this scene originally earned “Zoolander” an R rating. How’d Stiller get it reduced to PG-13? Simple, he cut out the part including a goat.
While it’s a tiny bit comforting Hollywood won’t allow inter-species love scenes to be shown to minors, I’m still not quite comfortable with the idea of my little sister being witness to the depravity of a guy, guy, little guy, tribal guy, girl orgy taking place in front of her on the big screen. Maybe I’m just old fashioned.
People rely too heavily on the rating system to reduce the information cost of finding out what’s really in a film. Take, for instance, the hoards of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I know who scorn the thought of watching R rated films. They swooned at the idea of seeing a film like “When Harry Met Sally,” which received an R rating for its “pervasive sexual theme” but which had no nudity and something like three F-words. They were shameless, however, about repeatedly seeing “Titanic,” now famous for its 30 seconds of nudity.
I think it’s time everyone admits what we’ve known all along. There is no longer a big difference in content between PG-13 and R. The most significant one I can come up with is that one is explicit, but designed to entertain kids while the other is explicit, but geared more toward adults. And while the studios may deserve some small praise for keeping goats out of the bedroom, the message conveyed by movies like “Zoolander” is the same. Don’t trust Hollywood to tell you what’s appropriate and what is not.