Amanda Kennedy- Article review of “Movie Ratings – Do they Serve Hollywood or the Public?� by Moria Hodgson
It was hard to find a solid thesis that the author is presenting, but even so, they brought up some interesting points. In this article Hodgson talks about how censorship has changed over time and how the standards of rating have changed. They also discuss how vague ratings are and if they are a form of censorship. Any film that gets a bad rating or an un-ideal rating can lose major money for various reasons: either the rating is so low that people will think that it’s lame and just made for kids, or it gets a high rating and are limited in the places that will show it.
The author gives a little information about each aspect of how a movie gets its rating and what that means for those distributing the movie and to the audience. Hodson compares movie ratings from the 1970s to those of today. She remarks on the change from the emphasis of rating in the ‘70s depending on the amount of sexuality in them to today with ratings being more about how much violence is portrayed. Part of this is because of our cultures change of opinion of what is acceptable and what is not.
She also talks about the history of how the rating system began in 1968 as a pre-emptive strike against government or community censorship. They wanted a universal system that everyone could understand. The problem with the system though is that movies can get their rating based on violence, sex, or language, and they don’t clearly specify why each movie got it’s rating. This doesn’t help a parent decide if that movie is suitable or not for their child to watch.
It was kind of hard to follow this article because it seemed to jump all over the place and doesn’t going anywhere. There are also some spelling and grammar errors in it. Even with that though, it brought up some interesting points to think about. I think the overall idea was to say that rating have an important part in the movie industry and that we should make sure that they’re doing their job by helping the viewer decide if the movie is appropriate for them, or for children.
