Motion Picture Association film rating system
[1] Other media, such as television programs, music and video games, are rated by other entities such as the TV Parental Guidelines, the RIAA and the ESRB, respectively.
Valenti cited examples such as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which used prohibited language including "hump the hostess", and Blowup, which was denied Code approval due to nudity, resulting in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, then a member studio of the MPAA, releasing it through a subsidiary.
However, the National Association of Theatre Owners urged the creation of an adults-only category, fearful of possible legal problems in local jurisdictions.
"[29] Steven Spielberg, director of Temple of Doom and executive producer of Gremlins, suggested a new intermediate rating between "PG" and "R".
[32] Around the same time, the MPAA won a trademark infringement lawsuit against the producers and distributors of I Spit on Your Grave over a fraudulent application of its R rating to the uncut version of the film,[33] and forced its member studios and several other home video distributors to put MPAA ratings on the packaging of MPAA-rated films via a settlement that would come into effect by fall that year.
[35][36] In the rating system's early years, "X"-rated films such as Midnight Cowboy (1969) and A Clockwork Orange (1971) were understood to be unsuitable for children, but non-pornographic and intended for the general public.
[37] In late 1989 and early 1990, respectively, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, two critically acclaimed art films featuring strong adult content, were released.
For example, the descriptor for The Girl Who Played with Fire read "Rated [R] for brutal violence including a rape, some strong sexual content, nudity and language.
For example, All the President's Men (1976) received a PG rating after appealing it from an R, despite multiple instances of strong language, likely because of its historic subject matter.
In 2020, a recording of Hamilton was released on Disney+ after cuts by Lin-Manuel Miranda to remove two of the three instances of fuck in the musical to qualify it as PG-13 under MPAA guidelines.
[3] An example of an otherwise PG film being assigned a PG-13 rating for a drug reference (momentary, along with brief language) is Whale Rider.
[66][67] Anti-smoking advocates stated that the child-friendly PG rating was inappropriate for the 2011 Nickelodeon-animated film Rango, which included over 60 depictions of characters smoking.
In 2010, the MPAA flagged three films specifically for "male nudity", precipitated by parental pressure in response to Brüno.
This left many commentators incredulous that the ratings board would have found that a film with disturbing scenes such as a possessed 12-year-old girl masturbating with a crucifix was acceptable for children to see.
Authorities in Washington invoked a municipal ordinance that would have prevented any minors from seeing the film, threatening theater owners with arrest if they did.
[74] Meacham insinuated that the board had succumbed to pressure from Warner Brothers, which had spent $10 million, more than twice its original budget, making the film; an X rating would have seriously limited The Exorcist's commercial prospects.
During his interview process, he had asked to screen recent films that had sparked ratings controversies, including The Exorcist.
[75] Like the X rating it replaced, NC-17 limits a film's prospects of being marketed, screened in theaters and sold in major video outlets.
The cards generated much controversy; MPAA president Jack Valenti said in a news article: "I think it distorts and ruptures the intent of this voluntary film ratings system.
He noted in a news article for the Christian Science Monitor that the R rating is "broad enough to include relatively family-friendly fare such as Billy Elliot and Erin Brockovich (which were both rated R for language) along with films that push the extremes of violence, including Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill".
[87] Ebert argued that the system places too much emphasis on sex, while allowing the portrayal of massive amounts of gruesome violence.
He called for an A (adults only) rating, to indicate films high in violence or mature content that should not be marketed to teenagers, but do not have NC-17 levels of sex.
Filmmaker Darren Stein further insists that his tame teen comedy G.B.F., which features multiple same-sex kisses but no intercourse, strong language, violence, or nudity, was "rated R for being gay.
The independent film Saints and Soldiers, which contains no nudity, almost no sex (although there is a scene in which a German soldier is about to rape a French woman), very little profanity, and a minimum of violence, was said to have been rated R for a single clip where a main character is shot and killed, and required modification of just that one scene to receive a PG-13 rating.
[97] The comedy Scary Movie, released by Dimension Films, at the time a division of The Walt Disney Company, contained "strong crude sexual humor, language, drug use and violence," including images of ejaculation, fellatio and an erect penis, but was rated R, to the surprise of many reviewers and audiences; by comparison, the comparatively tame porn spoof Orgazmo, an independent release by South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, contained "explicit sexual content and dialogue" and received an NC-17 (the only on-screen penis seen in the film is a dildo).
In contrast, Parker and Stone's second feature film, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, was distributed by a major studio (Paramount Pictures) and, after multiple submissions and notes from the MPAA, received an R rating.
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.
[104] A study put forward by the Harvard School of Public Health in 2004 concluded that there had been a significant increase in the level of profanity, sex and violence in films released between 1992 and 2003.
"[105] In 2010 Slashfilm managing editor David Chen wrote on the website: "It's time for more people to condemn the MPAA and their outrageous antics.
"[106] Chicago Tribune film critic Michael Phillips wrote in 2010 that the MPAA ratings board "has become foolish and irrelevant, and its members do not have my interests at heart, or yours.
