American Politics & Pop Culture

In Moira Hodgson’s article, “Movie Ratings-Do they serve Hollywood or the public?”, inconsistencies of and objections to the MPAA’s rating process are examined. Although the article was a bit dated and riddled with grammatical and spelling errors, I found many of the points to be very interesting, and a relevant corollary to the film we watched recently in class, “This Film is Not Yet Rated.” Hodgson details the differences among the ratings and an overview of how guidelines for each have changed in the years since their inception, as well as assorted people’s response to and opinion of them. Also examined is the role of ratings within the film industry itself and the politics of assigning various ratings to films.

Over time, Hodgson says that the ratings board has become more lenient on sexual themes and more stringent on violence, although many interviewed in “This Film is Not Yet Rated” would say that there is still much to be done to tone down gratuitous or potentially damaging violence. Language has been a fairly consistent qualifier for a harsher rating, but Mr. Valenti, head of the MPAA, says it can be the most difficult to rate, commenting that “if you’re a born-again Baptist in Mobile and the rating says some mild language and you hear the Lord’s name taken in vain, you’d feel you’d been tricked” (3). Language presents another issue as well. Because it can be used more easily than sex and violence without affecting the storyline, it is often included gratuitously to garner a stricter rating. Hodgson comments that “G (suitable for general audiences) is today considered box-office poison for many films on the grounds that the G can be equated with kiddie movies which arouse little interest among the majority of moviegoers” (2). Former chairman of the Code and Ratings Administration Richard Heffner responds to the issue by saying, “I frequently have the feeling the filmmaker has dropped in one of the harsher, sexually-derived words to get an R” (2). It’s an unfortunate reality that the ratings board has this type of control over the output of filmmakers. In this way the ratings board inevitably serves the film producers, who are able to bend the raters’ decision to their will by including gratuitous content.

Although the article mentions the possible inclusion of an intermediary rating between PG and R, “R14” as suggested by Steven Spielberg after complaints in response to his PG “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” it wouldn’t be until 1984 that the PG-13 rating would be introduced, providing an alternative to the restrictive “R” when less offensive content is present. The article also makes note of people’s complaints that reasons for ratings are not given. As of 1990, brief explanations are included with the rating. One look at the new “Iron Man” on the MPAA’s web site reveals the reason, “Rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and brief suggestive content.” Another complaint of the X rating being commonly associated with pornographic and otherwise sexually explicit films has been addressed by renaming the rating as “NC-17”, which films can earn typically for extreme violence, as well as sexual themes.