Article written by Samuel Burnett.
The MPAA stands for the Motion Picture Association of America but it could easily stand for the Moralistic Prudish and Afraid Americans considering how utterly idiotic the group is from an Australian standpoint. Obviously, I am going to explain in greater detail with evidence why I have this opinion but, in short, this is the same pack of idiots that gave The King’s Speech an R rating for a scene in which someone swears as part of their speech therapy. No sex, no violence, no drug use but clearly the children needed protection from this film.
Before I get too far, I should address that technically, Australia is not bound by the MPAA film rating system but, as many of the films we watch in cinemas tend to come from America, in practice, we can get just as screwed over by this bureaucratic cesspit.
Before the MPAA film rating system was implemented, the Hays Code (real name, The Motion Picture Production Code) outlined what could and could not be shown on film and this existed from 1930 to 1968. This served as the proto version of the MPAA that we all know and hate with rules designed to limit creativity for the benefit of pearl clutching puritans who think that making eye contact with the opposite sex leads to pregnancy. Some of the rules were downright bizarre and highly offensive including, no white slavery (but other slavery was just fine and dandy), no interracial dating (I’m noticing a pattern) and kisses were not allowed to last for more than three seconds.
This was often detrimental to the stories the films were trying to tell and directors would go out of their way to voice their displeasure by bending the rules whenever possible. In Rebel Without a Cause, director Nicholas Ray included the character Plato who was obviously a gay man to anyone possessing more than a functioning brain cell. This was in spite of the code clearly banning that kind of character. Other famous examples of director’s skirting the rules included Alfred Hitchcock’s two hand a half minute kiss in Notorious (the actors broke the kiss every three seconds so technically it was kosher according to the rules) and the infamous, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” from Gone With the Wind.
Now, some of you reading this might be thinking, movies don’t have to follow these stupid rules anymore, why bring it up? And you’re right, movies don’t follow these particular stupid rules anymore, but they still follow ones that are just as stupid, offensive and are often hypocritical.
Now, the MPAA film rating system works like this:
G – General Audiences All ages admitted. Nothing that would offend parents for viewing by children.
PG – Parental Guidance Suggested Some material may not be suitable for children. Parents urged to give "parental guidance". May contain some material parents might not like for their young children.
PG-13 – Parents Strongly Cautioned Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. Parents are urged to be cautious. Some material may be inappropriate for pre-teenagers.
R – Restricted Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. Contains some adult material. Parents are urged to learn more about the film before taking their young children with them
NC-17 – Adults Only No One 17 and Under Admitted. Clearly adult. Children are not admitted.
It seems straightforward and, on the nose of it, the MPAA film rating system serves a valid purpose, helping parents to know what films are and are not acceptable but this all falls away when one asks the simple question, “Why aren’t there just two ratings, For Children and Not for Children?” If the MPAA exists to help parents find acceptable movies, why have all these separate categories?
Things get even muddier when one notices that box office revenue received by a film is directly tied to the rating it receives, films in the PG and PG-13 range typically earning the most as they appeal to a wider audience. A film being slapped with an R or NC-17 rating can cripple its earning capacity. In fact, it is rare for an NC-17 film to earn much in the way of revenue as there are many restrictions placed on these films, where they can air, how they can be marketed and where they can be sold. An NC-17 rating is essentially box office poison. Which is why it is rather suspect that films released from major studios tend to be judged more leniently than those from smaller, independent studios. As a result, the MPAA has been seen by many as a strongarm for the major studios, used to hurt the potential successes of their rivals.
For example, in 2000, the comedy Scary Movie, released by Dimension Films, which was a division of The Walt Disney Company at the time, contained “strong crude sexual humour, language, drug use and violence,” including images of ejaculation and an erect penis. Despite this, the film was granted an R rating. In comparison, the comparatively tame porn spoof Orgazmo, an independent release by South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, contained "explicit sexual content and dialogue" and received an NC-17.
Another independent film, Saints and Soldiers, absolutely no nudity, almost no sex, a minimum of violence and little in the way of profanity. It was originally rated R for a single clip where a main character is shot and killed, and required modification of just that one scene to receive a PG-13 rating. Somehow, The Dark Knight, featuring a psychopathic clown slamming peoples’ faces onto pencil points, blowing up a hospital and holding children hostages easily walked away with its PG-13 rating unscathed. I’m sure that the fact that it was released by Warner Bros. is merely a coincidence.
Furthermore, the MPAA is, quite frankly, insane in how it approaches teenagers. You remember being in the schoolyard as a teen, right? Tell me, did you ever talk like the sanitized twenty-somethings pretending to be children that you see in movies? Did you never swear or use any kind of bad language? Of course, you did, you were a teenager, teenagers swear.
Tell that to the MPAA. In 2011, director Lee Hirsch made the documentary Bully, a film about school bullying victims that committed suicide. Obviously, the target audience and the group that needed to see this film the most were in fact school children, but the Moralistic Prudish and Afraid Americans slapped it with an R rating preventing the intended audience from seeing it. Their reasoning was the profanities in the film. You know, the profanities uttered by the school children in the film!
Finally, the MPAA is notoriously homophobic in nature as even the most chaste of same-sex kisses will almost inevitably result in an R rating and don’t even think about having your gay characters have sex unless you like the sound of NC-17 (or happen to be releasing your film via a major studio).
For example, the film Love Is Strange received near universal acclaim from critics and audiences. There is no sex in this film, there is no violence, but it still was given an R rating. The reasoning behind this was because the word “motherfucker” was used. But many films have used that word and managed to get away with a PG-13, Draft Day starring Kevin Costner being an example. Why should Love is Strange be treated differently?
Simply put, because it is about a healthy, long-term gay relationship.
The accurately titled documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated discusses in detail that the board seems to treat homosexual material much more harshly than heterosexual material which an MPAA spokesperson has corroborated, stating, “We don't create standards; we just follow them.”
Which raises the question, if they don’t create the standards, what is the point of them?
This organisation needs to go because it’s not just hurting the American audiences. It’s hurting us. It’s preventing us from seeing stories the way the writers and directors wanted to tell them because a bunch of sexless, terrified old people think that we need to be protected from confronting subject matter for our own good.
It’s time the MPAA was left in the garbage where it belongs.
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