Badmovies.org Forum

As much as this discussion has been brought up a few times and in the recent forum "When movies become two violent", I feel obligated to go through this with everybody here who is at least interested in this type of discussion.

With all this political correctness and censorship talk, what are your opinions on the censorship and film ratings board (MPAA) here in the U.S.?

I won't get into it right now because I would like to hear it from you first before I give my two cents.

MPAA ratings need to go. They are based on old traditions that one can categorize a film. The fact that today there are so many contraditions to the PG-R-PG-13 rule is very irritating. Some films are hurt with an R rating that dont' deserve it. Some films with a PG aren't suitable for younger audiences like they might promise. It's misleading, it hurts pictures, it's biased, and it's outdated. You asked. ;-)

I agree. When I take my son to see a PG movie and I have to be worried if it's going to be too violent or too much cursing, it's become too much. I even get that with G rated films.

I hate censorship and I consider the MPAA ratings a form of censorship. Studios cut movies in order to get a more acceptable rating and they can slap an NC-17 rating on anything they don't like and be reasonably sure that the studio will cut it.

 I think the ratings should be done away with in favor of a brief listing of letters for any objectional content like the guide does;

V = Violence
N = Nudity  (possibly N2 for full frontal nudity)
L = Bad language
D = Drug use
S = Sexual situations

Of course John, you're suggesting a modern movie would have full frontal. No, the heady 80's are over and we don't see that anymore...sigh. Anywhoo, the  MPAA, like the FCC, is a self-appointed organization that tells us what's offensive instead of letting us decide for ourselves, and those opinions are often hampered by financial or political factors. It's idiotic. Many promising films such as Romero's Resident Evil were scrapped solely because they'd have to be unrated, and no studio will release an unrated movie. If you see ads for a film with gun-toting commandos and steamy bewdroom scenes, it's a safe bet you shouldn't bring the younguns. The MPAA has even gotten pretty lazy, allowing graphic violence and f-words into PG-13s.

I don't think the MPAA is completely at fault(they do a good job most of the time) I think the big problem is parents not doing all they can to check out a movie and make sure it's appropriate for thier kids. There have been movies I've gone to with my parents(when I was younger) where there was certain things they didn't think I should see, but they didn't blame the movie, they just didn't know enough about the movie. Although I must say that the MPAA does seem a little strict at times(How did Legend Of Drunken Master get an R rating?! Jurassic Park was more violent and was PG-13!).

I'd agree with a rating system that just tells you whats in the movie. PG / PG-13/ G movies get away with too much, and sometimes R rated movies don't have that much wrong with them and could be PG-13. But using something like L for language isn't  enough they would have to have levels because of mild language and hard language and thats alot more complicated then slapping a PG-13 on a movie because they use 'f**k' once or twice, or there is a very short scene with nudity (a good example being Critters 2, some swearing and a scene with nudity but its still PG-13), I think that parents shoud check something like screen-it.com before taking kids to movies. I saw a family leave Lord Of The Rings (which was PG-13 if I recall) saying "Lets go buy all the books!". I don't think that the books are good for little children. For one they are huge books, and they have alot of violence in them, More than the movie I have heard. Thats just my opinion.

Lee wrote:

> I don't think the MPAA is completely at fault(they do a good
> job most of the time) I think the big problem is parents not
> doing all they can to check out a movie and make sure it's
> appropriate for thier kids.


This here is a great point...when I worked in a video store I had parents ask me all the time about whether or not this movie would be ok for their kids..etc..etc..I had one woman come in and yell at me because she let her 14 year old daughter watch Any GIven Sunday and was angry there was frontal male nudity....now I know other parents that watched this with their kids and had no proble, just blocked their eyes....I think Lee only touched on the problem, most times parents see the rating and take it as gold....while a ma-14 movie is fine for kids with certiain parents it may be deemed terribly in appropriate for a different family...Parents need to do the foot work ...but I agree that The MMPA does a good job normally....

-Nick

The FCC and MPAA are a little different.  The FCC is a federal entity, while the MPAA just holds the copyrights on using letters like "R" and "PG" to rate a film's suitability for viewers.

Here is something that really worries me:
A new bill introduced into the House (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/25/190235&mode=thread&tid=123)

The short story about the new House bill is that copyright holders would be able to conduct DOS (Denial of Service) attacks against people distributing copyrighted content.  I despise this because it is already illegal in the first place and the bill lets a copyright holder be judge and jury.  Seriously, screw that.  I do not think the law would ever hold up to a Supreme Court challenge, but best to stop things like this before they happen.  I already wrote my Congressman.  Anyone worried about this should as well:  Look up your Representative (http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html)

Why am I so worried?  Well, how about if I write a review slamming "Battlefield Earth" as crap.  The copyright holder decides that my review infringes, so they start DOSing my server.  And, until I get the case heard in court, they are totally within the law.

I do oppose censorship, in fact I find it quite frustrating to watch a good bad movie on tv, only to miss some parts because they were cut out to allow it to be shown on basic cable (HBO et al., aren't worth the money for me.)

A *voluntary* rating system is fine, though the current system is to broad.  Sort of like using a chainsaw for surgery.  A N-1, N-2, N-3 for nudity, L-1, L-2 . . . etc. for language, violence, sex, gore et al., would be better, IMO.  How about an S-1, S-2, S-3 for suckage?

I dunno, this used to be a topic that was more important to me, but it seems like there are fewer and fewer decent movies being made by the big studios.  As long as I can watch crazy import stuff, I don't really care about how the crappy movies made in the US are rated.  

Also, it seems like a lot of the stuff on DVD is included, even if it was cut out of the original release.  And failing that, usually you can buy boots of the foreign editions of movies, that tend to have less material cut out.  

The denial of service is scary, but it seems like it's focused more towards the people who offer bootlegged copies of entire movies for download.

The real problem with the MPAA is that the ratings are subjective and the people giving them are biased. When Robert Rodriguez' "El Mariachi" originally recieved an NC-17, he asked his producer why the much more violent Reservoir Dogs got an R. The response: "Reservoir Dogs was released by Miramax. The MPAA loves them." Similarly, when Lloyd Kaufman asked the MPAA why Troma's War got an NC-17, the response was "It's a horrible movie."

On a sidenote, I have to wonder why the MPAA even bothers to keep the NC-17 around; its connotations have become so negative that anyone who gets one either cuts it down to an R or releases it without a rating. Seriously, when was the last time you saw a film rated NC-17?

Probably NC-17 works as a threat & pr.  "Cut that scene down or you get an NC-17" and "See, we are concerned about inappropriate content, we got people to cut out some content."

Makes you wonder if some folks decide to film a scene, knowing the MPAA will object, so they'll cut it, and the MPAA will let them keep another scene in.  Or get away with a scene in a different movie.  

And for some reason, people call me cynical.

"Makes you wonder if some folks decide to film a scene, knowing the MPAA will object, so they'll cut it, and the MPAA will let them keep another scene in. Or get away with a scene in a different movie. "

Yes, this has happened on several occasions. When Martin Scorsese was making "Casino", he shot additional footage of a head-crushing torture sequence that involved an eyeball bursting out of a head. He never intended it to be in the finished product, but filmed it just for the purpose you stated. The article I read about it interviewed one of the effects artists on the movie, who stated that Scorsese apologized to the effects crew that all the work they were doing for this effect was only for this purpose. The effects artist was actually cool about it, stating that he and his buddies knew and understood the game Scorsese was playing.

While I do agree the MPAA ratings system needs to be greatly reformed, there is one potential problem with rating movies by violence, sex, nudity, language, etc. People might object to the fact that since there is no longer any age limits with the ratings, a kid might tell his parents that he's going to see the kiddie movie "Fuzzy Bunnies", but might instead go to see "Max The Axe Hacks And Whacks" instead. Still, I think rating by those features overall is a better way.

>The short story about the new House bill is that copyright holders would be able
>to conduct DOS (Denial of Service) attacks against people distributing
>copyrighted content.

 I hate to be the one to tell you this, but today the government exists to protect large corporations and they don't give a s**t about ordinary people. of course this is only a temporary solution until they can get their puppets in congress to pass the law that requires hardware copy protection to be built into every electronic device capable of viewing or copying any kind of media.

 Are you aware that Micro$oft, along with Intel and other companies are working on a 'trusted' computer design? The software portion of it will be called Palladium. The idea is that there will be copy protection built right into the hardware in the form of a 'fritz' chip (named after sneator Fritz Hollings AKA Disney's senator) that wouldn't allow unauthorized programs to run. They're trying to convince people that it will put an end to viruses, but its real purpose is to impose strict DRM (digital rights management) on everything from software to text files. They could make software/songs/movies only work a certain number of times before you have to pay again. Or only for a limited time, or even just disable it out of the blue when they feel it's time for you to upgrade. I've even heard that they'll be able to erase files by remote control if the copyright holder decides to take the file out of circulation, or someone at the FBI decides that it's illegal. By 'trusted' they mean that the big corporations trust your computer not to let you do anything they don't approve of. You won't even be able to change the date.

>Makes you wonder if some folks decide to film a scene, knowing the MPAA will
>object, so they'll cut it, and the MPAA will let them keep another scene in. Or get

 Actually, the makers of Southpark, Bigger, Longer and Uncut said that they never expected the scenes with Satan and Saddam Hussein to get by the MPAA. They said they figured they'd have to cut thos scenes and would be able to get some others by. Strangely, the ratings board didn't have a problem with them.

>  Are you aware that Micro$oft, along with Intel and other
> companies are working on a 'trusted' computer design? The
> software portion of it will be called Palladium.

Very, I keep a close eye on these sort of things.  Microsoft actually wrote a new section into their license when a recent patch for Media Player was released.  In effect, it says that at any time they may install digital rights management functionality into the player.  Meanwhile, we still do not have a legal DVD player for Linux due to the DMCA.

I am a Marine because I believe what America is built on.  No matter what, a corporation cannot vote a politician into office (don't get me started about a legal entity having rights equal to my own, as a person).  Only people can elect a Representative or Senator or... ...you get the idea.  If you see something you do not like, raise hell!  Do it in a sensible manner with your elected officials.

Well, the very idea of ratings promotes laziness.  Easy to stop thinking about a movie if it has a convenient label to categorize it.

You could say the MPAA does a good job most of the time, but most of the time it doesn't matter what the rating is.  So STUART LITTLE 2 is PG movie, and ROAD TO PERDITION is rated R.  Who cares?  Kids don't want to see a movie like ROAD TO PERDITION.  It's the films that push the boundary where the rating system matters, and it's where the MPAA always breaks down.

They do have several hard and fast rules, which often works against them.  For instance, AMELIE, which I consider a decent movie for anyone old enough to be interested in seeing it, was given an R rating for its U.S. release.  It contained several scenes in a sex shop, but they were mostly harmless.  If you were a teenage boy you might be titillated, but what doesn't titillate a teenage boy?

For the most part it's politics.  I think most of us have heard the story about the studio exec who let HANNIBAL into the theaters, but axed Rob Zombie's HOUSE OF A 1000 CORPSES.  If you have enough clout and money, you can get almost anything by.  Sure that may be a fact of life, but it shouldn't be a fact for an organization that likes to base itself in public morals.

And who are these people who are deciding our morals for us?

My main problem with the MPAA is that, although it is not officially sanctioned censorship, it often works out that way.  The NC-17 rating is the kiss of death.  Almost no movie released with that rating will make its money back.  This is due to a combination of the policy most theaters have of playing no NC-17 movies, and the same policy for rental stores like Blockbuster.  Simple economics demand that a movie make its money back.  And movies cost millions of dollars to make.  Much as I'd like to give up millions to satisfy somebody's "artistic vision", I'm not going to.  So the cuts that the MPAA demand to satisfy themselves become very close to mandatory.  Since the cuts are often the result of entertaiment politics and the board's nebulous morals, we have a de facto case of censorship.  Not federally sanctioned, but economically sanctioned by a small group of people who just happen to have that power.

Certainly a group nobody elected.

Anyway, that's small potatos compared to the stuff Andrew mentioned.  But that's an even longer rant that I shant get into at the present time.  (How can you have a freedom of ideas when all ideas cost money?)

(As a quick addendum to my post, I should note that I was allowed to watch pretty much whatever I wanted growing up.  I turned out mostly alright, I like to think.  The worst damage you could say I received was a strange fascination with 80's sex comedies and terrible horror movies.  Funny how things work out.)

I live overseas and therefore the MPAA ratings have never affected me directly. In my country there is no censorship, but there exist several cathegories in which movies are organised. The real difference with the US system is that only porno movies have restricted distribution, while the  rest of the movies are distributed freely. Concerned parents can always look at the newspapers, where every movie has its cathegory highlighted.

About the MPAA, I feel that their ratings are quite capricious and hypocritical. Can't believe they don't have much trouble with violence but instead jump everytime they see a sex scene. This and PC have caused a great deal of damage to US movies since the 90s.

I think one of the key problems with ratings is that the MPAA has forgotten (or really has never known) exactly why they are supposed to exist.

They often confuse simple nudity and salicious nudity. See in breast or a penis isn't a bad thing. It all context. Of course, mostly nudity is presented as the latter to titilate in the movies.

They often label violence as BAD! Violence is neither good nor bad, it is a tool. Shooting the bad guy is a good thing.

The thing that seems to really confuse them is innuendo vs gore. Most of the time, innuendo can be so much more powerful that buckets of blood, but can usually sneak past the impotent MPAA. Of course, then we have pure crap like Hannibal come out and they let the most ridiculous gore ever presented march right past them, too.

I think AMELIE probably deserved its R rating--there was a lot of sex in it, not just the scenes in the sex shop.   Definitely too much for a PG-13 rating.   Still a great movie, though.

Film ratings do't bug me anymore.  It's all part of the business and there are several alternatives to get your movie out and seen by the great unwashed masses.  Besides, who wants to sit in a theater filled with a great unwashed mass?

Censorship is something else entirely.  We cannot let the lie of "protecting ourselves" stop the free flow of information.  Do not let laws or pressure groups get items removed from the public discourse.  The best way of understanding the 1st Amendment and 'Free Speech' is a litmus test I was given in a political science class.  Find a subject that you find morally repugnant and argue in FAVOR of it (i.e. Atheists arguing for Under God staying IN the pledge, a parent arguing for the right of NAMBLA to distribute literature around elementary schools, etc).  When a collection of individuals controls information, they control YOU.

Yeah, that thing probably won't pass.  That's the single largest thing I think they did in the US government, making everything slow and big changes hard to do.  

If it does pass, I personally will firebomb the RIAA.  They have it coming.  Andrew, you can come, maybe bring a few military buddies?

The South Park movie is a really obvious example.  The scene with the two dildos was intended to be the bait removal scene for the MPAA.  They said it was fine...  Instead they had them remove a scene of sodomy between Satan and Sadam.  

The thing is, the "dildos" are actually cut out and scanned in REAL erect penises.  An erection = AUTOMATIC NC-17.  So Trey and Matt managed an R in what should be auto NC-17 territory.  The president of the MPAA even admitted it should of been NC-17 later.  

Oh yeah, has anyone seen Shadow of the Wolf?  Most gory PG-13 I've seen, easily.  Stuff like a guy getting half his face visibly chewed off by a wolf, then repeatedly stabbing it in the side, letting blood flow all over both of them.

>Very, I keep a close eye on these sort of things. Microsoft actually wrote a new
>section into their license when a recent patch for Media Player was released. In
>effect, it says that at any time they may install digital rights management

 I've heard about that. I'm still using Media Player 6.4 under Windows 98. A friend of mine keeps trying to get me to switch to Windows XP (has has a copy with no activation required), but I won't install that unless I absolutely have to, to run new software. I also won't install the RealOne player as it's the biggest piece of spyware to come along in years.

>functionality into the player. Meanwhile, we still do not have a legal DVD player
>for Linux due to the DMCA.

 I want to see the DMCA overturned. Hopefully one of the pending court cases can do it.

>I am a Marine because I believe what America is built on. No matter what, a

 Me too (the believing part, I'm not a marine), but lately, I'm starting to be ashamed of what America is becoming.

>corporation cannot vote a politician into office (don't get me started about a legal
>entity having rights equal to my own, as a person). Only people can elect a
>Representative or Senator or... ...you get the idea. If you see something you do
>not like, raise hell! Do it in a sensible manner with your elected officials.

 I've already written them about the CBDTPA bill (mandatory copy protection) and the DMCA, and I intend to write them about this Hollywood hacking proposal. I was also thinking of possibly typing up a short announcement about all of this and slipping them inside various computer and electronics magazines at the book store.

 I like what someone, somewhere once said; we should recall ALL our current elected officials and start over with a fresh batch.