Los Angeles Times: In the eyes of many filmmakers, the Motion Picture Assn. of America should be rated R — for reticent. The MPAA has long kept its rating methods a tightly guarded secret as it continues to wield enormous power over the types of explicit content that can been shown in U.S. cinemas.
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Having read this, I am further curious about the demographics of the raters. With such a small group, it seems like it would be challenging to represent the values of Americans of different backgrounds. There are hints about the raters’ geographic origins, and, if you squint, economic backgrounds, but that’s about it. How are these people chosen? Do they tend to represent more conservative values, or more liberal? Some part of me thinks that there are probably some relatively stable ideas about what is or is not appropriate for kids (and the information from the surveyed reinforces that), but then I remember that there are those who believe that not even basic biological sexual education should be taught to teenagers. It’s amazing (and a bit bewildering) to think that these eight to thirteen individual parents hold so much sway over the film industry. I can understand the challenges that might be involved in widening the board, but it makes me a little uneasy to face a concrete example of the power that so few can have over so many.
What is with our country's obsession with rating things? I understand wanting to make sure things are appropriate for your children, but every child is different, and can handle different things. I think that most 15 year olds are perfectly equipped to handle an R rated movie alone, but yet there might be a few out there who aren't so you have to be 17 to see it. I think it would make more sense if we just had a review system that said "here is all of the content in this movie" so a parent can know but they aren't locked into anything. I think that requiring a parent for R rated movies is just to prevent young kids from seeing the movie alone, but in reality, if a kid wants to go behind their parents' back, they're gonna do it anyways. It's interesting to me that we have no problem with the censorship of our TV or movies, but it has been such a big deal in the past to censor books. It's basically the same thing, and just like a book shouldn't be censored, a TV show or movie shouldn't be censored either. It's the parents responsibility to know what their kids are seeing, so that everyone won't get so offended by these arbitrary scales. They're the ones who will know their kids best.
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