Secrets of the MPAA Rating System
Many parents find the movie theater the ideal place to take their children for a fun family outing on the weekend. And as a result of this, many production companies produce a large number of family-friendly films each year to blow out the box office. The drawback is over recent years production companies have been producing family friendly films that contain an ample amount of crude humor and strong language, which allows a large percentage of children to be exposed to content that could negatively impact their behavior. This issue has been caused by a theory known as “Ratings Creep” which is the result of the board members of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) giving softer ratings to movies that deserve stronger ones (Belden and Potts 267). The MPAA needs to change their system to keep as much strong language and crude humor away from small children as possible.
The MPAA was not always such a liberal system. When it was first created in 1922 it was founded by Will Hays (“The Motion Picture Association of America”). Under his authority, movies were only approved if they upheld to the “correct standards of life.” This means that there was no crude humor or strong language present in any films produced period, not just films that were tailored toward children. His rating system was so strict that actions such as lustful kissing, or inappropriate dancing were even deemed too immoral to be seen in films, so movies of the 1920’s were extremely conservative. Unfortunately, the conservative flavor of the film industry changed when President Jack Valenti was introduced to the MPAA. Jack Valenti had a much more liberal mind than Will Hays and was not a fan of Hays’ conservative way of running things. When he became president he immediately set out to change the system by gaining support from NATO (National Association of Theatre Owners) and came up with a voluntary rating system that consisted of assigning specific letters to films in 1968. The letters would be determined by a selected group of parents and each letter would hold information that related the severity of the content presented in the film to families. The original ratings for films were G, M, R, and X (Austin, Nicolich, and Simonet 28). Films that received a G rating were suitable to general audiences and were family friendly; this meant that films with this rating contained no language, and mild humor. Films rated “M” were suited for mature audiences and contained mild language and stronger crude humor. Films that received an R rating contained strong adult themes and aloud strong language and humor to be present. And films that received an X rating were extremely explicit. This system was fairly stable. Parents were given the information they needed to know about films and the MPAA did their job and rated films accordingly, although issues with this system began to slowly surface when they changed the M rating. Instead of M, the system introduced PG and PG-13 which allowed for even more crude humor to be marketed to younger audiences (“FilmBug”). With the introduction of PG, now instead of having only clean films and films that aloud a small amount of crude humor and language, there are movies that can contain language and crude humor but still be marketed at small children.
It was already a prodigious problem that the PG rating made it possible for crude humor and language to be marketed to children, but the “Ratings Creep” theory made things much worse. An article written by Angela Potts and Richard Belden, both experts in the field of psychology, defined the “Ratings Creep” theory to be, “… stronger depictions of violence and language and more mature thematic material in PG movie phrases, and more adult language, substance use, and sexual content in PG-13 movie phrases…” (267). The problem is that if the claims and data are accurate, this theory will provide information that will conclude that now instead of small children being subjected to strong language and crude humor in films, which already heightens the probability that children will learn and imitate bad behaviors, they are now being subjected to even more strong language and crude humor than before. An article written by Michael Beach and Jennifer Tickle, Michael who works for the Department of Family Medicine at the Hood Center for Children and Families and Jennifer who works at the Department of Psychology at St. Mary’s College stated that, “Accumulating evidence suggests that adolescents’ behavior is influenced by what they see in popular media, including movies” (Beach, Tickle, and Dalton 757). This just makes the odds for the repetition and practice of bad behavior in children that much greater.
If the MPAA is left to run as it is the probability that the “Ratings Creep” theory will continue to increase each year is very high. This means that every year more and more crude humor and bad language is allowed to be presented in films targeted at families, which inevitably will increase the probability for bad behavior in children. In order to stop the “Ratings Creep” from becoming a bigger issue the MPAA should change their rating system to only allow small amounts of crude humor to be present. This means films that receive a G rating should have no crude humor or strong language and films that receive a PG rating should have no strong language present in the films and only a small amount of crude humor.
Calling for a change to the MPAA rating system that only involves redoing the first to ratings is a minor task. Crude humor and strong language must be kept away from young children to help insure good behavior, and appropriately informing parents of the content in films to insure the protection of the innocence of children was one of the principals the MPAA was originally founded on. The MPAA’s current system states that films rated G may contain slight crude humor and no language, and that films rated PG may contain crude humor and some strong language. To eliminate crude humor and strong language being shown to small children the MPAA should change the system so that movies rated G can contain no crude humor or strong language and that movies rated PG can contain slight crude humor but no strong language. In order to enact this, MPAA board members will need to give films stronger ratings if excessive amounts of crude humor are shown or if any strong language is present, so the minute a curse word is used in a film or the film exceeds three references to crude humor the rating needs to change from PG to PG-13. This will insure that young children will maintain their innocence and that children who are slightly older will not be exposed to language that can negatively influence them. Although there are many companies and individuals who would have a difficult time with this change for a handful of reasons ranging from just pure inconvenience to box office loss.
The individual boards of the MPAA and Chris Dodd the current president of the MPAA would be the people responsible for making the system change. Chris Dodd would be the one to state the change and the MPAA board members would then be in charge of enforcing it. Both Chris Dodd and the board members would have an issue with a rating system change because it would not only be an inconvenience on their part since they would have to pay closer attention to the films they rated to insure that no crude humor or language was present in G rated films and only a small amount of crude humor was present in PG rated films, but having to change the system would give the appearance that the system was flawed. If this were to happen, the MPAA could very easily loose its credibility and reputation and many of the individuals who currently sit on the MPAA boards could lose their jobs. During the 1950’s the MPAA was thought to have a “considerable influence on Hollywood”(Green and Karolides 359) and the MPAA prides itself on being a trustworthy organization, for the President Chris Dodd is a former U.S. Senator, having served in Congress for thirty-six years. He also authored the first child-care legislation since World War II and formed the first children’s caucus in the Senate so he obviously has a great passion for the well-being of children (“Motion Picture Association of America”). To take even more precautionary measures, the members that sit on the individual boards for the MPAA are voluntary parents, which mean that individuals that have their own children to care for are the ones responsible for deciding if the content presented in a movie is appropriate enough for small children. Because of the individuals who have been hired for the MPAA to make it a credible system, a call to change the system because of its failure to keep crude humor and language away from young viewers would be extremely damaging to the organization’s reputation.
Though the MPAA would argue that changing the rating system would be an inconvenience, this seems a weak argument when compared to that of changing the rating system to insure the innocence and well- being of children, especially since social mediums are said to hold a high influence over them (“Simply Psychology”). Also, the inconvenience would be a small one since it would not take much energy to simply make sure all G rated films contained no strong language or crude humor and that PG rated films were only aloud to contain a small amount of crude humor. And in response to the MPAA’s claims that changing the rating system would have a negative effect on their credibility, it is in fact much more probable the rating system would benefit from a system change. For one, the MPAA has already acquired a bad reputation. An article written by Jane Friedman a writer for the Columbia Law Review surmised that the MPAA served two purposes: one being to effectively educate parents on the content being shown in movies so they can make an appropriate judgment call on whether or not the material present is appropriate for children, and the second being to hamper the censorship of films by the federal and local government. Freidman went on to state that, “It is the thesis of this article that the rating system has accomplished neither of these goals…”(Freidman 186) which means that Freidman obviously feels the MPAA has not done their job right and therefore are making false claims and accusations. If this isn’t enough the “Ratings Creep” theory talked about earlier in this essay is yet another example of how the MPAA has hurt their own reputation. In their article after further discussion of the impact the “Ratings Creep” theory will have if left unattended Belden and Potts stated that, “… the media policy of the MPAA rating system must also be regarded as playing a role in shaping societal behavior norms…”(Belden and Potts 267). This means that the “Ratings Creep” theory proves that the MPAA holds a significant influence over the behavior children exude, and if they are allowing crude content and language to be present in films, they are going against what they stand for as an organization.
The major production companies that are affiliated with the MPAA would be next on the list of disapproval for a system change. The current productions houses affiliated with the system include: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Paramount Pictures Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Universal City Studios LLC, and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. These studios would have a problem with a system change because the rating a movie receives will affect the amount of money the film will gross, and movies that receive a G and PG rating have the largest grosses. The slow economy has already made it difficult for production companies to make money, and having a rating change that makes it more challenging for films to receive a rating in one of the largest two grossing categories would just makes matters all the more stressful. The other argument the production companies would present against the rating change would be that changing the system to limit the content shown to children would hamper the creative license of the studios, and therefore be infringing on their rights to free speech, and freedom of self-expression. This was the same argument the production companies presented when they wanted to enact a change to the strict rules they had to uphold under the Hays Code. So if the production companies already made this argument once, and were successful, what is to stop them from presenting a similar case now when they would be threatened by taking a step backward and having an impediment thrust upon their creative license once again?
The production companies would be the ones affected the most if the rating system changed because they are the ones who make the films and are trying to receive good ratings. But although they would claim that it would be difficult for them to receive a G or PG rated film this could very easily be made a simple task. If production companies really wanted a movie to receive a G or PG rating, they simply would have to create films that didn’t contain crude humor and strong language. If film companies fixed this issue right from the beginning they wouldn’t have to worry about their films not meeting the requirements to receive a rating for a general audience. But of course, the production companies would say that this would be an infringement on their creative rights, although no one would be binding them to a new special law. If the rating system were to change, it would be the production company’s choice whether or not a movie received a G or PG rating. If the production company’s wanted a lower rating, the would need to create movies that would reflect what that rating stood for, if they wanted crude humor and strong language to be in a film they would simply have to take a stronger rating.
The National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) would also have a problem with the MPAA changing the rating system. NATO is comprised of individuals who own movie theatres and are therefore responsible for which movies get shown to the general public on the big screen (“National Association of Theater Owners”). Since films that receive a G and PG rating are the films that bring in the most money at the box office, this means that films that receive a G and PG rating are the films that sell the most tickets at movie theatres. Obviously, Theater owners like making money so changing the rating system so it is more of a challenge for a film to receive a G or PG rating would present a problem to them. Out of the MPAA, the production companies, and NATO, the economy is probably affecting NATO the most, since the MPAA is voluntary and production companies aren’t directly banking on the general population to make money. Theater owners make money when people come to the theaters to see films. If people don’t come to the theaters, the theatres won’t sell tickets and consequently the theater owners won’t make any money. Theater owners already have a difficult time making money because with the economy tanking many families are choosing to wait until films are released in digital format so they can just buy the DVD or rent the movie from an online movie database like Netflix or On Demand which is much cheaper than going to the theater to view the film. Due to this problem, the last thing theater owners want is yet another issue keeping viewers away from the theaters.
The theater owners have an issue with the MPAA changing its rating system because G and PG rated films are the top grossing films at the box office and if the system were to change to make it harder for movies to receive these ratings there would be less of them produced which would mean less money would be made at theaters. The problem with this argument is that in reality there is a much higher probability that the box office would actually increase in sales if the MPAA changed because if parents were concerned with the content being shown to their children they would be more open to seeing a movie while it was still in theaters. Chris Dodd stated himself in an interview with Scott Bowles a reporter for USA Today that there has been a decline in the box office, although he believes the root of the problem to be boring films saying that, “Hollywood will rebound when studios produce more compelling movies” (Bowles 08b). This however, is not likely the case. The main reason the box office has seen such a decline in films is because parents are simply choosing not to take their children to the movies. And although the economy does play a role in this, the fact that movies being targeted at children are containing more and more crude humor and strong language also plays a major factor. When questioned on whether or not the rating system should be changed Lorene Whales a loving parent and the co-executive producer for the film First Landing replied “Yes.” Parents want to protect their children. An article written by Amy Jordan for Princeton University discussed how parents are beginning to play a more active role in controlling what their children see in the media. She makes a point to say, “More recently, the Conservative Parents Television Council has been a key influence on legislation to increase fines for broadcast indecency through its regular repot of sex, violence, and profanity…”(Jordan 237). This is a perfect example that demonstrates the concern parents have for their children’s well-being and if they have formed councils to help keep television conservative, what is to stop them from forming councils to keep movies conservative?
Although the MPAA, Production companies and NATO, all present believable arguments on why a change to the MPAA rating system would be a bad move, many of their claims upon further study of the rating system can be either easily refuted, or proved to be a false generalization. Many of their arguments are based on the foundation that if the rating system were to change to keep crude humor and strong language away from young children there would be a plethora of dollars lost on all sides, although in regards to a higher calling people are to think on “…whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, and whatever things are pure…” (New King James Bible, Phil. 4.8). And in reality if the rating system were to change to become more child friendly, in the long run the MPAA, Production companies, and NATO would actually receive more money.
Given that most of the arguments presented by the MPAA, production companies, and NATO are considerably valid, there is much more evidence available that would support the calling for an MPAA system change. From the bottom up, if the MPAA were to change its rating system to only allow a small amount of crude content and no language to be seen in movies that received a PG rating and no crude humor or strong language to be present at all in movies that received a G rating, parents would feel more comfortable taking their children to see movies screened in theaters. This would mean the box office would do better because theaters would be selling more tickets, and if the theaters sold more movie tickets the production companies would make more money because there would be a higher demand for their films. Also, the MPAA would become better because they would have the opportunity to regain their credibility lost with the “Ratings Creep” theory. In simpler terms, if the MPAA were to change the rating system everyone who is against it would come out winners, but if they choose to simply continue as they are and dive deeper and deeper into the “Ratings Creep” theory, everyone will sadly lose.
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