Outline

MPAA Outline:

1. Introduction: I give a snappy hook, a big head-twisting fact, then follow with my thesis statement.

1. Snappy hook

1. A movie where children and teenagers are forced to brawl to the death for entertainment, in a fantasy world (Hunger Games), is rated PG-13; whereas a movie where children are bullied by other children, in the world we live in, is rated R (Bully).

2. Head-Twisting Fact

1.  A few movies such as Bully and The Kings Speech were given the R treatment not because of an over-saturation or glorifying of these features, but because of foul language. In past cases of R ratings appealing to PG-13, such as Gunner Palace, “fuck” was permitted 47 times.

3. Thesis

1. The MPAA is a faulty and crooked system for evaluating movies that is biased to content and value, due to Dismissal of Proper Surrogate Parenting, “Ratings Creep”, and How the Public Resents It.

2. Dismissal of Proper Surrogate Parenting: An association for parents, reviewed by parents, it’s important that the MPAA itself is acting in place for children viewing films. Just how well have they maintained that purpose?

1. Parents of gifted children take better care of what their children see than average children when reviewing the MPAA (Ableman and Gubbins, 1999).

1. “To date, the MPAA television advisory system has not been a resounding success. Just over a third (34.7%) of parents were reported using the age-based rating system to guide their children's viewing (Bash, 1997; Mifflin, 1997) and many parents found the ratings counterproductive to decision-making (Cantor & Harrison, 1996; Krcmar & Cantor, 1997) and relatively useless (Greenberg, Rampoldi-Hnilo, & VeT Steeg, 1998) [Ableman and Gubbins, 1999].”

2. Movies themselves can be enabling, helping children to learn and perceive situations which they may encounter in their life (Hebert and Hammond, 2004).

1. “Films available for use with children and teenagers present many affective issues that teachers may want to address, such as friendships, identity development, gender issues, peer-group pressure, and parental and family expectations. Sharing these movies with young people can reinforce prosocial messages that are incorporated into the curriculum, while simultaneously enabling a teacher or counselor to meet curricular or guidance objectives (Herbert and Hammond, 2004).”

3. Despite what the parents say, the kids still feel enticed to watch older rated content (Krcmar and Cantor, 1997).

1. “Parents also make mostly negative comments about advisories and "PG-13" ratings whereas some children, especially older children, made positive comments about advisories and "PG-13" ratings… For example, chidren [sic] used more positive affect when discussing "PG-13" rated programs. In fact, a large majority of their statements about "PG-13" rated programs were positive. This was perhaps due in part to their familiarity with this rating and their desire to see this familiar, but forbidden type of video (Krcmar and Cantor, 1997).”

4. “Context of Violence (Wilson).”

1. “Reward and punishment… Reality of violence… Justified violence…” and the “Perception of the character (Wilson).” Each subject described and quoted from Barbara J. Wilson.

5. Between 1996 and 2004, smoking among box office hit movie characters was evaluated by Keliah A. Worth, Sonya Dal Cin, and James D. Sargent (2006).

1. “Smoking prevalence among major adolescent and adult movie characters is declining, with the downward trend among adult characters weakest for PG-13 rated movies. Although many movies depict no adult smoking, more than one third depict smoking as more prevalent than that among US adults at the time of release (Worth, Cin, and Sargent, 2006).”
2. “Although we found significant downward trends in character smoking in movies rated G/PG (p<0.019) and R (p<0.003), the downward trend in movies rated PG-13 was not significant (p=0.503) [Worth, Cin, and Sargent, 2006].”

3. “Ratings Creep”: How much is too much? Or, for the MPAA’s case, how much is not enough? There’s a clear misbalance of violence to language, Hollywood to indie judgment, and “ratings creep” of PG-13 movies—from the end of the 20^th century to now.

1. A scope of the MPAA, what it means, and how people have reacted to it in the past—“Ratings are guidelines, not law (Schmidt, 45, 2000).”

1. “The MPAA content rating system has been the subject of extensive litigation (Schmidt, 45, 2000).” The following court cases described and why.
2. “In sum, the main findings of the state and federal courts in nullifying incorporation of the MPAA ratings into ordinances and laws are: That prior restraint, absent a judicial finding of obscene content, is prohibited; That the MPAA rating criteria are vague; That incorporation of the MPAA ratings in laws is an impermissible delegation of legislative and judicial authority to a private “actor.” (Schmidt, 45, 2000)”

2. Bully, its summary, and its rating.
3. Gunner Palace, its summary, and its rating.
4. The King’s Speech, its summary, and…

1. Seeing something wrong here? The system fluctuates between right and wrong, just and unjust.

5. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, body count.
6. “Youth exposure to explicit film violence and sex is linked to adverse health outcomes and is a serious public health concern (Nalkur, Jamieson, and Romer, 2010).” Introduction to “ratings creep.”

1. (Describing “ratings creep”…) “This can occur when the restrictive R category is increasingly assigned to more harmful content while a less restrictive rating category, such as PG-13, absorbs films with content that would have previously been assigned to R. This pattern would be reflected in declining use of the R category, increasing use of PG-13, and increasing levels of harmful content in both rating categories. Despite the criterion that “rough or persistent violence is absent” in PG-13 films, studies indicate that PG-13 contains equal, if not more, violence than R films [21], [22] and [23] (Nalkur, Jamieson, and Romer, 2010).”
2. “In fact, more than a third (37.3%) of PG-13 films were at or above the average amount of explicit violence in restricted films, a pattern that was present more recently as well as earlier in the period since 1984. However, no PG-13 films contained more than the average explicitness of sexual content in restricted films (Nalkur, Jamieson, and Romer, 2010).”
3. “Logistic regression models indicated significant increases in violent (odds ratio [OR] = 3.68, 95% CI: 2.45, 5.53) and sexual (OR = 1.50, 95% CI: 1.10, 2.05) explicitness after the initiation of the 1968 rating system. In addition, Figure 2A shows that the explicitness of violent content increased over the entire period in R and in PG-13 movies since 1984. Consistent with a ratings creep interpretation, while violence increased in both PG-13 and R films, recent PG-13 movies from 2001 to 2006 were significantly higher in violence than earlier R movies from 1977 to 1984, t = −2.186, p = .024. And, the number of PG-13 films steadily increased while R films declined over time (see also Figure 1) [Nalkur, Jamieson, and Romer, 2010].”
4. “These findings suggest that CARA likely considers sexual content to be more harmful than violent content. This is unfortunate, given considerable research showing links between youth violent behavior and violent entertainment media exposure [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9] and [10]. Especially concerning is the finding that proportions of PG-13 films escalated drastically over time to the point where they accounted for about half of top-grossing films. PG-13 has contained increasingly violent content over time. Hence, youth may receive greater exposure to more powerful violence over time through popular films. (Nalkur, Jamieson, and Romer, 2010).”

7. Another medical study on the MPAA’s reviewing patterns displays the same “ratings creep”.

1. “We found significantly higher rated content in movies as a function of time, suggesting that the MPAA applied less stringency in its age-based ratings over time for the period of 1992-2003 (Thompson and Yokota, 2004).”
2. (Conclusion to study) “Parents and physicians should be aware that movies with the same rating can differ significantly in the amount and types of potentially objectionable content. Age-based ratings alone do not provide good information about the depiction of violence, sex, profanity, and other content, and the criteria for rating movies became less stringent over the last decade. The MPAA rating reasons provide important information about content, but they do not identify all types of content found in films and they may particularly miss the depiction of substances (Thompson and Yokota, 2004).”
3. “Looking at a proxy for net profit (ie, gross revenues minus budget, while noting concerns about reporting of financial data[16]), we similarly found that films rated PG and PG-13 that received MPAA rating reasons only for violence reported higher values on average than films with other combinations of rating reasons (Thompson and Yokota, 2004).”

8. “Violence, sex, and gore are abundant in films (Ravid, 2004).” Business of explicit content.

1. “In particular, our results support the view that the production of violent and, in particular, very violent movies is consistent with suboptimal risk choices and revenue maximization motives by studio executives. This is similar to studies of other industries where executives are exposed to significant risks. (Ravid, 2004).”
2. “This makes production of such films consistent with revenue (sales) maximization objectives. It is important to note, however, that the coefficients of G and PG ratings, which also increase revenues, are higher; in other words, one will have more revenues than the base case (unrated) or than the average film in the sample if one produces a violent film, but one will do even better if one produces a family friendly feature (which also increases the rate of return on investment) [Ravid, 2004].”
3. “De Vany and Walls (2002, p. 449), also show, using a different framework and a different data base, that “Hollywood produces too many R‐rated films,” and they conclude that shifting resources to PG and PG‐13 films will trim the loss tail of the revenue distribution and expand the profit tale (Ravid, 2004).”

9. Saw 3D

1. Money example for lack of content, rich in gore.

10. “…the dreaded X (Nowell, 33, 2011).” Hollywood shaping to the MPAA’s standards.

1. “To help filmmakers avoid an X-rating, the MPAA had even published a revised code of self-regulation in 1977, two years before Friday the 13th was produced (reprinted in Lewis 307–14). The document catalogued numerous elements that could result in a filmmaker failing to secure an R-rating. “Restraint shall be exercised in the taking of a life,” it warned, “detailed and protracted acts of brutality, cruelty, physical violence, torture and abuse shall not be presented” (310). It was important for Friday the 13th to avoid an X-rating even if it failed to attract an MPAA-member distributor because a significant portion of Friday the 13th’s target audience would be excluded from theaters if the film was released X-rated (or without a rating from the Classifications and Ratings Administration, or “CARA”) [Nowell, 33, 2011].”

4. How the Public Resents It: Before you read this paper, how much attention did you give the ‘green cards’ before trailers? Even then, were you deterred by the description, or did it advertise the movie further? How many children have you seen in PG-13 features—R features? If the MPAA stands to protect movies from government intervention, enabling its first amendment rights, then we also have a right to talk about how we’ve felt about its role in society.

1. “Censorship effects of MPAA’s “informational” rating system (Bates, 637, 1970).”

1. “The MPAA’s claim is simply that no censoring is done: The producer (or distributor) is free to leave any scene in his movie, as long as he is willing to accept the consequences—a restrictive rating. However, state and federal courts have consistently reiterated that they will look behind the form of an arrangement affecting first amendment rights and focus on its substance. Although the program purports to be merely a classification scheme with no censorial overtones as to material available to adults, a realistic appraisal of the overall effect of the ratings leads to the conclusion that a form of covert censorship in fact exists. Of course, the X rating itself involves a form of direct censorship in that children are totally denied access to X films. The rights of adults are simultaneously affected through pressures on producers to eliminate themes and scenes not meeting Code standards. (Bates, 637, 1970).”

2. “Don’t Expect Any Major Changes to the MPAA Ratings System in 2014”

1. “Since its beginning, the MPAA process of rating films has never been free of controversy. "People have always been complaining about MPAA ratings, and before that they were complaining about the production codes" says Jonathan Kuntz –a UCLA professor of American cinema history – referring to the system of censorship that the ratings code replaced in 1968. "It's something that's been going on for 100 years." (Sneed, 2014)”
2. “When not being accused of being too easy on violence and too hard on cursing, also dogging the MPAA is the rating board's treatment of sexual content, where some see a double standard – that scenes showing sexual pleasure as experienced by women or those in homosexual scenarios having a tougher time with the ratings than portrayals of sexual pleasure experience by a heterosexual male (Sneed, 2014).”
3. “For those outside of the film industry who are critical of its system, Graves says that the internal studies show that parents – who she says the ratings are for in the first place – are happy with the current standards. The MPAA would not make any of its internal research available for the public. However, Romer is in the midst of his own survey examining the satisfaction parents have with the system (Sneed, 2014).”

3. “"We try to get it right,"… (Coyle, 2013)”

1. “Some have chosen to opt out of the MPAA's guidelines. When the sensual coming-of-age story "Blue Is the Warmest Color," which features a lengthy lesbian lovemaking scene, opened in theaters last month, a handful of movie theaters, including New York's IFC Center, chose to allow "high-school age patrons" despite the MPAA's NC-17 rating. The theaters felt a movie about teenagers deserved to be seen by teenagers (Coyle, 2013).”
2. “Graves said that effects-heavy films — particularly comic book films — have introduced a less realistic kind of violence that's neither graphic nor brutal: "There are so many more ways of putting (violence) on the screen than there were two decades ago." (Coyle, 2013)”

4. “… so why not have a little fun with them (Krule, 2014)?”

1. “Scott noted that he sees movies where entire cities are destroyed and millions of people are killed, but the movie gets a PG-13 rating because there’s no blood. On the other end of the spectrum, some indie movies get an R rating just because teenage characters smoke pot or have sex, common occurrences in many young adult novels (Krule, 2014).”
   e.) “... but what it is not is an R-rated film (Kehrberg, 2012).”
   1.) “The R-rating is based on a handful of swear words used by students in the film who, by the MPAA's standards, wouldn't be allowed to watch recordings of themselves, with a side of popcorn, without the company of an adult. Alex Libby, the student bullied during this scene, spoke at the rating's appeal hearing, when it failed to be overturned by a single vote. His message was simple: Once my reality has been filtered through a camera lens, I'm not allowed to see it? This is the strange truth behind the MPAA system: Isn't real life filled with violence, language, and sexual content? Why does turning this reality into art or entertainment suddenly render it unsafe for underage eyes?
   f.) “”The Franklin Five.” (Franklin, 25, 2012).”
   1.) An article about a film professor being inspired by a former student to limit their student's writing to suppress and challenge them.
2. “In fact, free speech is often used as a marketing tool to sell products in all branches of popular culture (Franklin, 26, 2012).”
3. “The ideology of free speech as an intristic good obscures the fact that the operation of the free market results in a very limited set of themes for mainstream movies (Franklin, 33, 2012).”
   g.) “There's a word for the MPAA.... [sic] (Phillips, 2010)”
   1.) “I’ve had it with the Motion Picture Association of America’s ratings and classifications board. It has become foolish and irrevelvant, and its members do not have my interests at heart, or yours. They’re too easy on violence yet bizarrely reactionary when it comes to nudity and language. Especially language. For years I’ve written about the MPAA’s priorities, noting the latest example of screen violence that never, ever should’ve gotten by within the confines of a PG-13 rating. Or in the case of films such as "Hostel: Part II," an R. Along comes a film with a few f-words in it, and bam: 49 times out of 50, automatic R (Phillips, 2010).”
   2.) “In the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Goldstein has written at length about the MPAA’s persistent bloopers in general and, earlier this week, about the galling "King’s Speech" decision in particular. He quotes MPAA rating board head Joan Graves as acknowledging the increase in violence and torture in PG-13 films over the last two decades, while admitting the MPAA’s comparative nervousness about language. In the L.A. Times story Graves says: "Our perception is that parents still feel the same way about bad language, especially in areas like the Midwest and the South, where they often have a problem with God, as in goddamnit. On the coasts, perhaps because they have more urban centers, they’re more concerned with violence." (Phillips, 2010)”
   h.) “In the 42 years since Jack Valenti proudly unveiled his new Motion Picture Association of America ratings system, our national standards of taste have changed (Ebert, 2010).”
   1.) “Some might say they've become more vulgar, others might say more relaxed, but grade school students now talk like truck drivers did in 1970. I know, I know: not your kids. The rise of cable TV, home video and the Internet also means that many American children have pragmatic knowledge of what the human body looks like unclothed and what it can do while in that state. This may be unfortunate, but it is a fact (Ebert, 2010).”
   2.) “The MPAA should have changed its standards long ago, taking into account the context and tone of a movie instead of holding fast to rigid checklists. In my debates with Mr. Valenti over the years, he told me many times: "We can't be movie critics. It's not our job to evaluate the quality of a motion picture. We are simply providing guidelines for the parents of America." He loved that phrase, "the parents of America," and assumed that they agreed with him about such matters as cursing, nipples and what we have taken to calling "junk." The ratings system wasn't really invented to counsel parents, however, but to head off the threat of local censor boards in many cities and states. As studios began to release films in many markets at once, it was impossible for them to trim prints on a city-by-city basis. The turning point may have come after a Chicago policeman, testifying in an obscenity trial, was asked how a movie made him feel. After long thought he confessed, "It made me feel like I wanted to be with my wife." (Ebert, 2010)”