Hollywood's PG-13 Rating Deserves An X

What is the most creative fiction to come out of Hollywood? Here it is: "PG-13: Parents Strongly Cautioned. Some Material May Be Inappropriate For Children Under 13." "Some" material may be inappropriate for children under 13? Who is kidding who? How about "most" of it is patently harmful? That is more like it.

In the words of the Motion Picture Association of America, "A PG-13 film is one which, in the view of the Rating Board, leaps beyond the boundaries of the PG rating in theme, violence, nudity, sensuality, language, or other contents, but does not quite fit within the restricted R category." The italics are mine - at least they got that right.

What is the restricted R category anyway? "R - Restricted: Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian."

That is Hollywood’s biggest joke. How many movie theaters card teenagers and turn them away from R-rated movies if a parent isn’t with them? If you believe this, you believe that the sky is green and the grass blue. How many parents and children attend an R-rated movie together? That would be the real test of the rating system. Both generations would squirm from of embarrassment and shame.

In a January 18, 2000 article in the Washington Post, Daphne White, founder of the "Lamb and the Lion Project", talked about her experience of seeing, "The World Is Not Enough," a recent James Bond movie rated PG-13, with her middle school-aged son. He saw the film advertised above his school playground by a skywriter depicting 007.

White writes, "I went back to see the film with a friend, and this time we took notes. We counted about 20 machine guns and 24 handguns in at least seven extended killing scenes that together lasted for more than an hour. We actually saw 20 people die, although the actual body count was much higher. We witnessed two different types of torture, as well as pistol whipping and graphic hand-to-hand (and head-to-wall) combat."

Film critic, Roger Ebert, in reviewing a PG-13 film, "Bring It On," observes that the film is, "yet another example of the most depressing trend of the summer of 2000, the cynical attempt by Hollywood to cram R-rated material into PG-13-rated movies. This is done not to corrupt our children, but - even worse - with complete indifference to their developing values. The real reason is more cynical: Younger teenagers buy a lot of tickets, and are crucial if a movie hopes to ‘win the weekend.’ The R-rating is a penalty at the box office."

At the end of his review, Ebert concludes, "The MPAA's rating system, having first denied American moviegoers any possibility of a workable adult category, is now busily corrupting the PG-13 rating. The principle seems to be: As long as we act sanctimonious by creating a climate in which legitimate adult films cannot be made, we can get away with maximizing the box office by opening up the PG-13. The MPAA in the summer of 2000 reveals itself as more willing to peddle smut to children than to allow adults to make their own choices."

"Who are those guys?" - Butch Cassidy in the movie, "Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid." The Motion Picture Association of America board consists of a group of 8 to13 Hollywood-area parents (no other qualifications) handpicked by MPAA President Jack Valenti and paid for by the movie industry. They are to responsibly reflect the opinion of America’s parents.

Which sewer did they crawl out of? Or are they the next door neighbors of the wealthy directors and marketing professionals who conspire to advertise R rated movies to teenagers? Are they neighbors to the editors whose job it is to take out just enough poison from their product to get a PG-13 rating instead of an R rating. It is a case of the fox guarding the henhouse.

What are these boundaries between R and PG-13 movies? This is Hollywood’s biggest mystery. From the MPAA website we learn:

"The criteria that go into the mix which becomes a Rating Board judgment are theme, violence, language, nudity, sensuality, drug abuse, and other elements. Part of the rating flows from how each of these elements is treated on-screen by the filmmaker. In making their evaluation, the members of the Ratings Board do not look at snippets of film in isolation but consider the film in its entirety. The Rating Board can make its decisions only by what is seen on the screen, not by what is imagined or thought."

When asked about the PG-13 rating, a spokesman for the MPAA explained, "It’s all subjective." Judging by the PG-13 rating on, "The World Is Not Enough," apparently the Rating Board apparently doesn’t recognize "rough and persistent" violence - the criteria between R and PG-13 on violence - when it sees it.

More criteria. "If nudity is sexually oriented, the film will generally not be found in the PG-13 category - note the words "if" and "generally." A film's single use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words, though only as an expletive, shall initially require the Rating Board to issue that film at least a PG-13 rating. More than one such expletive must lead the Rating Board to issue a film an R rating, as must even one of these words used in a sexual context.

"These films can be rated less severely, however, if by a special vote, the Rating Board feels that a lesser rating would more responsibly reflect the opinion of American parents." Based on the PG-13 movies I’ve seen, the Rating Board must take a lot of "special votes."

The movie industry’s rating system has no real meaning or enforcement. What little impact the rating system actually has is undermined by the industry’s deceptive marketing practices to underage children. Their Rating Board consists of anonymous Hollywood-based parents who make subjective decisions about the moral sensitivities of American parents on matters of sex, violence, and language.

Who is it that is clueless, them or us, or is it just me?