Its interesting how the ratings and guidelines change with different ratings. I agree that some ratings should be a little more strict. Very nice paper guys!

I thought your article was interesting. I agree with you that the movie ratings need to be a little more strict. Kids are very influential with things like movies, so they need to be careful what they put in them.

True

Movie Ratings

By: Emily Lehmann and Sammy Greener

English 10B 7th hour

    Does the phrase “appropriate for all audiences” have the same meaning today as it did forty years ago? What type of content do other countries approve for children to see in movies? Who decides what rating a movie receives and what criteria do they use to rate movies? In our opinion, The American movie rating system has fallen a bit short of expectations. Its smooth foundation has a couple of wrinkles that could be ironed out.
 

The American Movie Rating system has been around since 1968, but movies came about in 1896. So what did they have before the rating system? As stated by Brian Hansen in “Movie Ratings: Is Hollywood’s Rating System too Lenient.” they first started with censorship. There was a National Board of Censorship that would watch the movie. If they thought it was okay, they gave it their stamp of approval. This then led to the Motion Picture Production Code. The code stated what you couldn’t put into your movie. If you put something in your movie that was on the list, you could be fined (Hansen).    

As stated in “Facts on File,” Jack Valenti, the head of MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), met with religious groups, NATO (National Association of Theater Owners) and IFIDA (International Film Importers and Distributors of America). Together they came up with the first rating system. “G”, “M”, “R” and “X”. “M” was confusing for a lot of people so they changed it to “GP”, and in 1984 it became the rating that we know today, “PG” (Movie Ratings)

The modern rating system is “G” (General Audience), “PG” (Parental Guidance Suggested), “PG - 13” (Parents strongly cautioned), “R” (Restricted - under 17 needs an adult with them), and “NC - 17” (No one under the age of 17 is admitted). A movie is rated by the CARA (Classification And Rating Administration). The CARA is a rating board made up of 8 to 13 parents. These parents stay anonymous and look for six certain categories in the movie. They decide what age group the theme is best suited for, how much violence, nudity, drug abuse, and bad language are in it, and base their decision on that. All of these elements are treated equal, meaning they don’t look at one as more severe than the others. Also, they don’t compare the movie they are rating to other films. Getting a film rated is the movie producer’s choice. Getting a movie rated isn’t a law, and the theatres don’t have to enforce the rating if they don’t want to. For example if there is a “R” rated movie playing and a 16 year old comes and buys a ticket, it is the theatre’s choice to let them see it or not (Movie Ratings).  

Other countries hold their own respective movie rating systems to different standards then we do here in the United States. According to Parent Previews.com, all of the Canadian territories have their own rating systems. British Columbia for example, starts with “G” and “PG” then escalates to “14A” and “18A”. The “G” and “PG” classifications are the same as what we have in the U.S. Quebec, on the other hand, has a much more “relaxed” rating system. The criteria for a “G” movie in Quebec is “appropriate for all ages, and contains occasional violence, some nudity, some love scenes, and some expletive are tolerated.” Parent Previews.com also says that in Australia, some levels of the movie rating system are legally binding. “MA” (mature accompanied) can legally only be viewed by children over fifteen unless they are accompanied by an adult. New Zealand may have one of the strangest rating criteria I have come across. The level “M” (for mature) is intended of audiences of sixteen years or older and is rated so based on the amount of anti-social behavior in the film among other things including “horror, cruelty, offensive language, violence and sex.” In my opinion, Britain has a pretty reasonable rating system. They begin with “U” (for universal), then moves up the scale to “PG” (all ages, but estimated for about eight year-olds), elevating then to “12”, “15”, and “18” (no one under the specified ages are admitted). The most explicit movies are rated “R18” and are only sold in licensed “specialty” shops to adults over eighteen (“Movie Ratings Information”).

Reports by Brian Hansen in the article “Movie Ratings: Is Hollywood’s Rating System too Lenient?”, show some situations where our rating system is becoming too relaxed. The first example is the movie Kangaroo Jack. This film was rated “PG” by the CARA, but parents were deeply disturbed to find out that the film had an underlying adult theme with sex, violence and bad language included. All of which should not have been in a “PG” movie. Another example is that Lion and Lamb think that Disney Movies and shows show a lot of anti-family practices. For example how many Disney movies do you see where the mom is dead? A lot of them, Bambi, Brother Bear, Little Mermaid, and Nemo to name a few. Other things that Lion and Lamb feel are anti-family is the amount of violence, homosexuality, incest, graphic sex, and the drug use in Disney films. Overall, I think that our society has become more accepting of those things. Is the media molding how we think and interact with people? The amount of violence in movies is going up all around, but in animated films there is more violence than in real character movies, which makes sense since our technology has come such a long way and all of the graphics they can use to create violence scenes. Probably the biggest way our rating system is too relaxed is “ratings creep”;when the rating board allows something that should be in a higher film into a lower film. In our opinion if it is supposed to have a higher rating, give it that; don’t just let it slip. The parents of America looking to you to make the right decision (Hansen).

This is what we feel needs to be fixed in the rating system in the United States. First the movie rating system needs more black and white rules, like how many times a certain word can be said to make it a certain rating, or how many love scenes can be the movie for it to receive a certain rating. Second, if they made the rating system a law (like in Australia ) that had to be enforced, we think that it would be a lot better. Third, 26 out of 51 “G” rated movies had tobacco, alcohol or drugs in it. That is 51% of movies that are supposed to be “appropriate for all audiences.” We feel that there should be none of that allowed in any “G” or “PG” movie. Little kids see that and they look up to those actors that they think are cool and the companies are getting them hooked on their product without the kid even realizing. Another thing that should not be in “G” movies is subliminal messaging (when they have a scene create a word that it makes so fast you can’t see but your brain is remembering it with out you even realizing it). For example, in the movie lion King when the leaves blow, it makes the word, “SEX. This shouldn’t happen in a “G” movie.

The movie rating system has come a long way from where it started and with our  suggestions, (stated above) we feel that movie rating system would be at a point where it would please the majority of American parents and serve its intended purpose, which is to warn parents about the content their children are subjected too in films. In conclusion, the American movie rating system should be improved.