Tom Lulic - Censorship
In this week’s film it is interesting to see the amount of industry influence on film ratings. In response to Franklin’s statement, “Films are censored in one of three ways: by the market, by industry, or by the government,” the presence of industry in film censorship is seen not only through the MPAA Board’s actions but also through the make-up of the MPAA Appeals Board. In the film it is shown that some of the raters have direct contact with studio personnel after movie screenings. Meetings are called for these individuals to commune after a movie showing. Given that these ratings have “great social significance”, one would assume that, to avoid any outside influence on the ratings, the persons involved and financially benefiting from the ratings would not be involved. Even if a rating has been decided upon for a given film, for what reason are the studio personnel involved anyway? What is more interesting is the roster for the MPAA Appeals Board. Comprised of studio and movie theater chain executives, it seems worthless to appeal to such a crowd when so many financial partnerships and company dependability are engrossed. Assuming that the rating process for a film has a significant weight on the potential for the amount of money a film can make, these MPAA Boards can doctor the market into one that has the greatest benefit for their respective studio or movie theater. The rating for a film should not be influenced by such financial criteria.