This Essay is Not Yet Rated

Only three organizations in the United States protect their employees with complete anonymity: the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Motion Picture Association of America. Clearly members of the FBI and the CIA are kept secret for their own protection and, by extension, the protection of the American people. Although the Motion Picture Association of America was also created to protect citizens by assigning appropriate film ratings, its success is mixed at best. The MPAA’s lack of structure and obvious negligence when adhering to its own rules has hurt both the film industry and the children the organization was intended to protect. One begins to wonder if members of the association are kept secret to protect themselves from criticism they may receive as employees of such an incompetent organization.

To understand the role of the MPAA, it is important to reflect on its origins. Its ancestor, the Hays Code, was the first American rating system introduced in response to the risqué films of the 1920s and 1930s. Meant to keep the film industry’s morality in check, the Hays Code spelled out a series of rules for what was acceptable and what was unacceptable content for motion pictures being shown to the public. One of the more important rules warned that “no picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin” (Leff and Simmons 285).  As time went on, however, national standards shifted. Throughout the 1950s and 60s the conservative ideology upheld by the Hays Code fell by the wayside and competition from racy foreign flicks caused U.S. filmmakers to resist the oppressive American system more passionately. Often this resistance was met with cinematic success, as was the case in 1955 when Frank Sinatra starred as a drug addict in Otto Preminger’s The Man With the Golden Arm. Although the unapproved film had to be specifically requested by theaters and garnered an X rating, it still made plenty of money and earned critical acclaim. In 1955, Sinatra received an Oscar nomination for his forbidden portrayal (Mondello). This debate and many other incidents like it, highlighted the restrictive and outdated nature of the Hays Code as well as the public’s acceptance and enthusiasm for a new cultural norm.

It became clear that a new film screening system was needed. Enter Jack Valenti. In 1968, Valenti, a former White House special assistant, introduced a “revolutionary new parent focused rating system” (History of Ratings). Instead of simply deeming a film immoral or moral, Valenti’s system, which is still operating within the Motion Picture Association of America, allowed an anonymous board of parent employees to apply different ratings to each film: G, PG, PG-13, R, and from 1990 on, NC-17. According to the MPAA, these ratings and their connotations were meant to “provide parents with a useful social service, while allowing filmmakers to connect meaningfully with appropriate audiences” (History of Ratings). Some may agree that this system is a social service; they may think that it is the best way to help parents decide what films are appropriate for their families. Although Mr. Valenti would certainly want the public to believe this is the case, in actuality the wishy-washy structure that has been in place for the past 45 years prevents the MPAA from being effective at all.

The key component and problem with the MPAA’s structure is the board of raters. The anonymous MPAA raters are supposed to represent the voice of the American parent. Raters are only permitted to serve on the board for seven years to ensure their voices remain reflective of the American parent entity (Albosta 127). In addition, “raters must have children between the ages of five and fifteen when they join the Ratings Board and must leave…when all of their children have reached the age of twenty-one” (Motion Picture Association of America, Inc.). This rule was established to ensure that the parents doing the rating were also raising children within the demographic the MPAA was created to protect. These bylaws made sense and seemed to be a good way to ensure the voice of the MPAA was an accurate, modern representation of the American parent. In 2005 director Kirby Dick began an investigation of the MPAA and its anonymous board members for his movie This Film is Not Yet Rated, and he discovered that these rules are often disregarded. Two raters had been serving for nine years, three raters only had children over twenty-one years old, and one rater had no children at all. The anonymity  of the raters’ board is said to protect its members from outside influence; however, this secrecy has also allowed the MPAA to avoid accountability. In turn, this has led to a blatant disregard of the MPAA’s standards by the MPAA itself and is just one of the many ways the organization has shown a lack of consistency and credibility.

These inconsistencies are almost as alarming as the system (or lack thereof) that the MPAA employs to rate films. Kirby Dick’s interviews with two former raters revealed that there is no rater training process involved, no method for breaking ties when raters are divided, and no official guidelines used to distinguish one rating from another. Considering that the films reviewed by this board are often multimillion-dollar projects that take hundreds of hours to create and perfect, the lack of a systematic approach is inexcusable and inappropriate. It appears that writer and Newsweek critic David Ansen was correct in saying the MPAA’s “mythical American parent is a…convenient fiction that someone has to make up to come up with the arbitrary system” (This Film is Not Yet Rated). When this arbitrary system is fundamentally flawed, what can be done? The MPAA has only avoided reformation because of its high approval among parents. According to the Classification and Rating Administration, a sub-organization of the MPAA, “80% of parents find the rating very/fairly useful” (Why: History of Ratings). However, as Kirby pointed out, “compared to nothing at all they probably are useful” (This Film is Not Yet Rated). Due to the anonymity of the board, the votes of American parents are cast in blindness, leaving them incapable of truly understanding what exactly they are approving. In order for parents and citizens to make informed endorsements, information must be made available. The anonymous curtain put up by the MPAA, however, has prevented accessibility and allowed for numerous policy discrepancies. Clearly, the system in place is faulty.

Currently, the MPAA’s corrupt system is affecting both the filmmaker and the audience. Filmmakers often feel trapped by the MPAA because it masquerades as a voluntary system. Although films do not need to apply for an MPAA rating, such a rating must be given by the board in order for films to be released by most studios, thus making an MPAA rating a necessity for many releases. If a filmmaker does not formally accept the assigned rating or if the rating is NC-17 or X, the film cannot be advertised on television. The board’s ability to limit the marketing of a film with an NC-17 rating could mean millions of dollars lost for the project. Because of this many directors are forced to cut meaningful scenes from their films to procure a lesser rating. Many critically acclaimed films such as A Clockwork Orange, Eyes Wide Shut, Blue Valentine, and The Wolf of Wall Street were re-edited to appease the MPAA (Rosen and McClintock).  Although some of these restrictions may have been warranted, many others have been viewed as prohibiting artistic expression.  As no clear guidelines are present or even evident in the films already rated by the MPAA, it seems that the black tape is in the hands of an inconsistent and anonymous committee.

Although it is possible to appeal a rating, the court that is used to do so strips defendants of rights normally held in courts of law, specifically the right to quote precedent. This appeal process can be problematic and infuriating for directors who have seen films awarded lower ratings with equally or more mature content than in their own films. Because no comparisons can be made, no case can be strengthened by examples. Moreover, the appeals board itself is anything but impartial. Its nine members consist of many industry insiders including “the CEO of the MPAA, the President of the National Association of Theatre Owners, and three representatives chosen by the member companies of the MPAA” (Albosta 127). Allowing the members of these organizations to dominate the appeals board puts the power of the board into the hands of big studios and grants media conglomerates like Paramount, Disney, and Warner Brothers complete control of the film industry.

The only concern of the big studios is to make as much money as possible. As they have infiltrated the ratings system, their standards have been reflected in the rating board’s decisions. In particular, the exploitation of violence has generated enormous profits for big studios. For this reason, graphic violence has become widely accepted in film today despite the negative effect it seems to have on the demographic “protected” by the MPAA. According to Dr. Eugene Beresin of the Clay Center for Healthy Young Minds, a relationship does exist between the time spent watching violent movies and aggressive acts in real life. What’s more, Beresin found that “when violence is coupled with an attractive movie star and combined with sexuality, the impact appears to be stronger.” How then has the MPAA been allowed to award PG-13 ratings to movies such The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers, and Skyfall despite their heavy use of gun violence? The answer may simply be because these movies prove to be the most profitable. Joan Graves, head of MPAA’s rating board, recently stated that PG-13 is often allocated to such films because the violence is “a less realistic kind of violence that’s neither graphic nor brutal” (Coyle). However, “less realistic” violence should not be seen as less potent. Minimizing or failing to show the result of a gunshot may procure a lesser rating, but it is leading to the desensitization of the action, especially among children. Onscreen guns fire, people fall down, and the story simply moves on. But in reality the effects of gunfire have been devastating.

I live ten miles from Sandy Hook Elementary School. I have witnessed the after-effects of gun violence. Shortly after the Sandy Hook tragedy occurred, the MPAA’s chairman, Christopher Dodd, “vowed that his industry stood ‘ready to be part of the national conversation’ about gun violence,” but very little change has been reflected in the MPAA’s proceedings (Rottenberg). Allowing these movies to slide through the rating system because the violence they portray is “unrealistic” is irresponsible and is hurting the children the MPAA supposedly set out to protect. Violent films are approved by the MPAA because they place rose-tinted glasses on reality while brushing aside the real issues of our world today. Director Michael Tucker ran into this problem after submitting his documentary film about soldiers in Baghdad to the board. He found the rating system to be ineffective and inappropriate in rating such a realistic film or any films of a mature and realistic nature. He contests that the raters’ board was not created to rate reality and has no place to do so. He argues, “When the Americans liberated Buchenwald and they saw all these images of all these heaps of people, is that PG, is that PG-13, is that R? People need to see that. You can’t rate reality” (Segrest).  Realistic violence and even real violence that show consequences should receive a lower rating than a film that masks its effects. The young demographic to whom violence sells so well would then be able to see the devastating effects that violence can and does have. The change would not restrict the freedom of filmmakers; it would help ensure that the films they make are being targeted at a mature audience who is more capable of distinguishing cinematography from reality. Such an amendment to the routine proceedings of the MPAA has the ability to change the public’s attitude towards violence as well as many other issues and would help serve the American people, parents and filmmakers alike.

In order for the MPAA to be taken seriously, they need to step out of the anonymous shadows and make some big changes. Rater eligibility policies should be enforced, distinct systems of rating should be created, and the process of rating should be transparent to those filmmakers who need to employ the system to share their work. Furthermore, the MPAA needs to create an unbiased appeals court that allows defendants the right to quote precedent and defend their artistic vision to a board that is not so strongly associated with the media oligarchy. The MPAA’s walls were put up to prevent outside corruption when, in fact, corruption was lurking behind its closed doors. By becoming more accountable and independent from the big studios, the MPAA will be able to reverse some of the corruption that has infiltrated its every level–from simple rules and regulations to the appeal process to the ratings themselves. Currently, the raters’ board seems to be catering more to its employees and employers than to the children it was created to safeguard and the filmmakers it was meant to serve. Children are not only being harmed, but they are also being desensitized to the issues our world faces today. This board does not promote reality. It is not a reflection of the morals and ethics most parents wish to instill in their children, nor has it allowed for the free expression so valued in this country. As it operates right now, the Motion Picture Association of America is merely a glorified censorship committee, and will remain so until it begins to take its job seriously.

Works Cited

Albosta, Jason K. “Dr. Strange-Rating Or: How I Learned That The Motion Picture Association Of America’s Film Rating System Constitutes False Advertising.” Vanderbilt Journal Of Entertainment And Technology Law 12.(2009): 115. LexisNexis Academic: Law Reviews. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.

Beresin, Eugene, and Steve Schlozman. “Violent Video Games and Movies Causing Violent Behavior.” Psychology Today. Psychology Today, 22 Dec. 2012. Web. 12 Nov. 2013.

Coyle, Jake. AP Film, Writer. “Motion Picture Group Defends Movie Ratings System.” AP Top News Package (2013): News (AP, UPI, etc.). Web. 13 Nov. 2013.

“History of Ratings.” MPAA. Motion Picture Association of America, n.d. Web. 04 Nov. 2013.

McClintock, Pamela. “‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Avoids NC-17 After Sex Cuts.” The Hollywood Reporter. The Hollywood Reporter, 27 Nov. 2013. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.

Mondello, Bob. “Remembering Hollywood’s Hays Code, 40 Years On.” NPR. NPR, 8 Aug. 2008. Web. 26 May 2014.

Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. Classification and Rating Rules. Motion Picture Association of America, n.d. Motion Picture Association of America. Motion Picture Association of America, Inc., 1 Jan. 2010. Web. 4 Nov. 2013.

Leff, Leonard J. and Jerold Simmons, The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, Censorship, and the Production Code from the 1920s to the 1960s. Lexington: University of Kentucky, 2001. Print.

Rosen, Christopher. “11 R-Rated Films That Were Almost NC-17.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 16 Jan. 2013. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.

Rottenburg, Josh, et al. “Under The Gun.” Entertainment Weekly 1246 (2013): 34. Academic Search Complete. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.

Segrest, Taylor. “MPAA Exposed! Kirby Dick Sticks It to the Ratings System.”Documentary.org. International Documentary Association, Sept.-Oct. 2006. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated. Dir. Kirby Dick. Perf. Kirby Dick and Kimberly Pierce and Darren Aronofsky. IFC Films, Netflix, BBC Flims, 2006. Netflix.

“Why: History of Ratings.” The Film Rating System (CARA). MPAA, July 2012. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.