MPAA: Masters of Bias and Inconsistancy

I am amazed at the world today when it comes to movies and everything that comes with them. It seems in an age of information and advancing technology that a mass of information is available to anyone, anyplace, anytime. The MPAA has been existent for over 30 years and there are still controversial issues about how they rate movies today. In the film, This Film is Not Yet Rated, Dick argues of the unqualified and unprecedented criteria in which films are rated. He states that the films are rated by “10 random parents in the LA area” (Dick). This is one of the most controversial issues about movie ratings: that ten anonymous parents tell the rest of our country that a 15-year old child cannot watch this movie because “they” feel that “they” wouldn’t want “their” child watching this film. This is, in lack of a better word, absurd. This rating system is “one of the most unofficial operating boards operating today” (Dick). The film rating system is unofficial and bias in numerous ways and is very inconsistent.
The MPAA’s rating system is flawed primarily in its ratings of homosexuality and violence v. sexuality. The MPAA is “a very powerful censorship group” and are based on “moral sensors” (Dick). This shows how inconsistent the rating system truly is. Dan Glickman even confessed that, “these parents are traded out” and some “work full time, others work part time” so our movies are not even being rated by the same people, even less by nonexistent standards (Glickman). We have our entire nation being given standards by “ten to fifteen” unprofessional, bias parents (Glickman). Our society allows these anonymous strangers to dictate our lives and cinema experience through their opinions. These ratings are even bias towards current issues of sexuality and violence in films. In current day rating, there is a “homophobic bias built into the rating structure” which prohibits viewing of particular scenes in movies (Dick). We allow ourselves to be restricted to such standards because society as a whole contains a “homophobic bias” (Dick). Dick continues to go onto say that “films with a gay theme may get a harsher rating than one without” (Dick). This rating system reflects a majority of society’s opinions. The rating system is by no means trying to “guide society”, but yet trying to “change with it” (Glickman). This is also true with violence v. sex. It is simply stated, “violence is fine, sex is not” (Dick). And this is true of America. We view violence as an everyday thing, which is seen on the news, television, video games, etc. but it is apparent that parents in America are more protective when it comes to sexuality. However, it is “the exact opposite in Europe” (Dick). Overseas, Europeans rate sex less strictly than violence. This proves that the rating system is influenced by society.
This bias and inconsistent rating system has manipulated and slowly diminished the art we call filmmaking. The film rating system has “forced great film makers to change their art” and by doing this taken away from the people who view their final product. Film makers are forced to edit their art and take out their original ideas to appease the MPAA and their anonymous raters because “a film with a less restrictive rating gets out to a wider variety of audience” (Dick). Film makers are out to make a profit and reach the largest audience possible, but with the rating system and its inconsistency, they are cut short and are not able to meet this goal. The MPAA sets “zones” in which we view movies (Crosstalk). But all-in-all, it should be up to the parents to set these regulations and zones in which we view movies such as G, PG, PG-13, etc., not strangers. Even the opposition suggests that “I'll decide when my kids are old enough to enter them” (Crosstalk). The rating system has two goals: to “encourage artistic expression by expanding creative freedom and to insure that the freedom which encourages the artist remains responsible and sensitive to the legal standards of the larger society” (Leff). This term of “freedom” is flexible (Leff). If the rating system encourages “artistic expression” and so called “freedom” then how can it restrict an audience? Why do these force film makers to edit their product to reach a more vast audience? The rating and restrictions should be left to the parents, not strangers.