As movies became more violent and the religously motivated complaints flooded in, the American entertainment industry was face with a predeicament. Something had to be done to calm the raging crowds and thus, the Movie Picture Association of America (MPAA) was created. Though the industry saw it coming with films like Psycho and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.
The original rating system was divided into 4 ratings, G, M, R, X each with its own respected levels of content. Parents (as alway) were confused wether M-rated movies had more mature content than R-rated movies. In respnse the MPAA changed the rating to GP, this also cause confusion with parents and it was changed to PG. Because parents beleived GP to be too dismisive and the PG-13 rating was added.
This is were problems begin to arise, as the ratings began to become more Liberal; violence, sexually suggestive speech and action, naked men, and mild cursing were acceptable in the lower ratings, while sexual intercourse (either implicit or explicit) and naked women were not! For example, the G-rated Battle of Britain (1967) had mild British cursing and explicit killings of RAF and Luftwaffe aircrew. True Grit was G-rated after being edited-down in tone; however, it still contained American cursing and strong cowboy violence. Moreover, The Thomas Crown Affair was rated R instead of M (despite its violence being like that of a contemporary James Bond film of the 1960s), because of a chess-game-as-sexual-foreplay between the protagonist and antagonist.
Parents, still confused, whether if PG-13 films were intended for adults, as many movies contained explicate violence and the use of curse words. This arised as many PG movies contained PG-13 level content. The ratings board quickly reacted and PG-13 films began outumbering PG rated films.
As the X rating was never an officail rating or trademark, it was often self applied in pornogphy for busniess reasons. This led many newspapers and television stations to refuse X-rated movie adverts and some cinema owners forbade exhibitions of such movies. Because of the dilenma between art and commerce led the MPAA to create a new rating for adult dramas that were not pornography so that consummers could differenciate between the two.
Most NC-17 films are released in cinemas, either in an edited, R-rated, version or in its original version. For example, the studio Fox Searchlight Pictures released a censored R-rated American edition of the European movie The Dreamers (2003), and later released both the original, NC-17 "Director's Cut" and the censored American commercial version on the same DVD. Only the viewers can determine whether or not that was a marketing strategy to make more money, or if it is censorship. Ironically, American film studios release NC-17 movies abroad uncensored and artistically intact; adding controversy to the subject of the MPAA's movie ratings system in the United States.
That brings us to now, were the current rating system has come under seige by a number of high profile critics. Film critics such as Roger Ebert argue that the MPAA puts to much effort on not showing sex while allowing the portrayal of massive amounts of gruesome violence. Its also said that rating system is geared towards the more trivial aspects of the movie such as profanity and the portrayal of smoking (newly added feature) rather than a movies theme.
Independant distributers have also argued that the MPAA are more lenient with major studios's releases than independent film's and that they receive specail treatment. Their main argumen is with Saving Private Ryan with they beleive would have got the NC-17 rating due to its graphic display of DDay had it not been a Steven Speilberg film. The comedy Scary Movie, released by a division of The Walt Disney Company's Miramax Films, contained "strong crude sexual humor, language, drug use and violence" but was rated R, to the surprise of many reviewers and audiences; by comparison, the comparatively tame porn spoof Orgazmo, an independent release, contained "explicit sexual content and dialogue" and received an NC-17. On the other hand, the studio distributed film The Passion of the Christ received an R rating despite graphic depictions of violence.
These ratings battles have inspired films such as South Park:Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Which directly critisizes the MPAA and hold the world record for most profanity and violence in an animated film. The film was succesfull and is regarded as an intelligent and entertaining peice of political satire.
Also being attacked is its PG-13-rating, which many ethnic and religous group beleive has the smae amount of content as an R-rated film. A Harvard study suggested that the rating system has allowed far more violence, sex, profanity, drug use and other mature content in 2003 than they have allowed in 1992 in PG and PG-13 rated movies. That study found this when they noticed that an R-rated movie released in 1992 had the exact same content levels as a PG-13 rated film released in 2003.
Internal opponent Stephen Farber documents how, since its early days, the board has used the same censorship tactics it uses today: threatening an X rating to force a film maker to delete content offensive to the personal sensibilities of the board's members; the lopsided prejudice against sex relative in favour of violence; and using of psychological jargon to justify restricting films because of their themes rather than their images, even when inexplicit; for example, the anti-war movie The Revolutionary first was rated PG, but later was re-rated R because it is anti-war.
Many critics of the system, both conservative and liberal, would like to see the MPAA ratings unveiled and the standards made public. The MPAA has consistently cited Nationwide scientific polls, (conducted each year by the Opinion Research Corporation of Princeton, New Jersey) which show that parents find the ratings useful. Nevertheless, critics respond this proves only that parents find the ratings more useful than nothing at all.
Whether or not this once fine ratings board can pull itself together is up to itself. It all depends on how much the MPAA is willing to accept its own mistakes rather than making excuses. Let me personally hope that for the betterment of us all, the board will stop using dirty tricks to proceed its own private agendas and veiws. I also hope that the general public will take more notice into this issue, as it is they who have the power to institute change this.