A search for toys licensed by the Toy Story franchise brings up more than 300 items on ToysRus.com, most of which squelch exactly the kind of creative play the film celebrates. One business writer described the number of Toy Story 3 products at Target as “jaw dropping.”
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It’s well known that children play less creatively with media linked toys and with kits–but even more damaging are the Toy Story 3 video games for Nintendo, Sony PS3, Nintendo DS and X box. And of course, there’s the preschool educational media market: V-tech has the MobiGo Toy Story 3 Learning Software for children as young as three, and Leapfrog has learn-to-read digital story books. Never mind that screen media already occupies, on average, about 32 hours a week in the lives of two-to- five year olds at the expense of the kind of hands-on play that is so revered in the film.
It’s ironic that the real threat to toys like Woody, Buzz and the gang is not that the child who loved them grows up. It’s that, in real life, companies like Disney/Pixar have commercialized children’s leisure time to such an extent that a preschooler who might be the beneficiary of outgrown creative playthings is likely to have no idea what to do with them.
I loved the new Shrek Forever After movie. But I was very sorry to see that the lovable big green ogre is not just living happily ever after over in Far Far Away. He is all over the mall selling everything from credit cards and breakfast cereal to junk food and greeting cards to kids and their families. It even includes “limited edition “Ogre Green” filled Twinkies.”
The press release from Dreamworks, explains that Shrek has a wide range of “partners.”
This is of course just another way to help make more money for the studio. But it is detrimental to the integrity of the product itself to commercialize it this way and it is particularly regrettable when it is attached to products that are unhealthy for children.
Following my phone meeting with Joan Graves and Marilyn Gordon of the MPAA and the FTC’s report (citing my article) criticizing the motion picture industry, the MPAA has informed me that it will be making some changes to its rules after the first of the year. While they did not give me any details, I believe that the new rules will improve the alerts on “green band” trailers. As I reported in September, the MPAA made an unannounced change in April of this year, switching the “green band” language that begins most movie trailers from the unambiguous “approved for all audiences” to the meaningless “approved for appropriate audiences.” They may also address some other concerns in the FTC report, including the marketing of promotional tie-ins for children that market PG-13 movies, un-rated DVD versions of previously rated movies, and some response to the FTC’s finding that “In its review of marketing plans and ad placements, the Commission found explicit and pervasive targeting of very young children for PG-13 movies,” including specific attempts to disguise the level of violence in the marketing campaign.
I am hopeful about their willingness to address the concerns I raised and I will provide the details of the MPAA’s new rules as soon as they are available.
On a related note, the LA Times’ Patrick Goldstein has a very good point to make today about the MPAA’s poor judgment in giving the new Meryl Streep movie, “It’s Complicated” an R based not on a scene of pot smoking by people in their 50’s but because there are no bad consequences.
Apparently, everything would’ve been fine if only the characters had been killed in a gory car crash because their reflexes were slightly impaired after sharing the joint, which surely would’ve served as a stern warning to kids not to ever touch the evil weed.
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It’s another outrageous example of the lunatic priorities of the MPAA, which claims to serve the interests of parents but actually dances to its crazy drummer, happily handing out PG-13 ratings to unbelievably violent movies like “Terminator: Salvation” while whipping out the R rating at the first sign of a few naked breasts or, God forbid, an unsheathed penis. In Rob Marshall’s upcoming film, “Nine,” Daniel Day-Lewis smokes non stop through the entire film, but since it’s only cancer-causing tobacco, the MPAA had no problems giving the film a PG-13 rating. That’s a travesty. If you’re going to restrict kids from seeing a movie because of pot smoking, you certainly should apply similar standards to heedless cigarette smoking.
The R rating for “It’s Complicated,” which hits theaters Christmas Day, is especially ludicrous. It would be one thing if we saw Kristen Stewart smoking weed in “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” since the movie is right in the sweet spot for teens and tweeners. But if the MPAA is really sticking up for families everywhere, it hardly seems to be a parental concern that impressionable kids are going to be flocking to see a romantic comedy featuring actors who are — in the case of Streep and Martin — even older than some of their grandparents.
Copyright MPAA 2009
As I describe in an exclusive story today’s Chicago Sun-Times, The Motion Picture Association of America’s Ratings Board made an unannounced change in April of this year that eliminated almost all restrictions on the content of movie trailers, the brief previews of upcoming films that appear before the feature in theaters and in promotional websites. This was done so quietly that my article is the first public notice of the change.
Whether a film is rated G (general audiences), PG (parental guidance suggested), PG-13 (parents strongly cautioned), and R (restricted to ages 17 and up), the “green screen” trailers shown in theaters and online were always preceded by a notice on a green background noting that “the following preview has been approved for all audiences.” A movie could have violence, strong language, nudity, drug use, or other mature content was included in the movie, but the trailer would at most imply it.
That is, until April, when the green screen trailer language quietly switched from “approved for all audiences” to “approved for appropriate audiences.”
“Appropriate?” Even with context, that word has almost no content. Without any context, it is positively Orwellian. This comes as the MPAA has included increasingly more specific descriptors since 1990 to explain the basis for its movie ratings, after pressure from the Federal Trade Commission, public interest groups, and even the movie-makers like the Directors Guild.
The MPAA does not reveal much about its ratings board, even the names of its members. And its processes and the ratings themselves are still often confusing and inconsistent as demonstrated in the documentary “This Film is Not Yet Rated.” Material that would get an R in a drama gets a PG-13 in a comedy. The F-word can be used twice in a PG-13 as long as it does not refer to sex. The MPAA has improved its descriptors, especially for tobacco and substance abuse. The raunchy comedy “Land of the Lost” was based on a family-friendly 1970’s television show but it was rated “PG-13 for crude and sexual content, and for language including a drug reference.” “Shorts,” a family film about a wishing stone from Robert Rodriguez is “Rated PG for mild action and some rude humor.”
But those descriptors can often be Delphic. You would need a PhD in semiotics to figure out what the often-used “mild thematic elements” is supposed to mean. Last year’s PG-rated “Marley & Me” was marketed to kids as a cute puppy movie, but its “thematic material” included postpartum depression and the very sad death of the dog in the title. A much more kid-friendly pooch movie, “Hotel for Dogs,” is also rated PG for “brief mild thematic elements, language and some crude humor.” “Brief mild thematic elements” in that film presumably refers to the mean foster parents of the orphan characters and some law-breaking by the children.
It used to be that trailers were all essentially rated G. Until this year, there have been basically two categories of MPAA-approved trailers. The “green band” trailers, with the MPAA’s approval on a green background, were approved for audiences of all ages. “Red band” trailers, to be shown in theaters only before R-rated movies, included R-rated material, thus ensuring, the theory went, that they would be seen only by adults who were by definition interested in movies with mature content.
Since the internet has become a key element of movie marketing, however, it has been impossible to limit red band trailers to adult audiences. On the contrary — teenagers are naturally very interested in seeing red band trailers and very good at using the internet to find them. They are also very good at getting around the wispy “restrictions” that at most ask for a name and birth date in order to be able to access the mature material.
“Green band” trailers disclose what the movie’s rating was, but before April of this year, the clips from the movie in the trailer itself would in theory not include anything inappropriate for general audiences. This has had some absurd, even misleading results. The trailer for the raunchy 2001 comedy “Saving Silverman” (“Rated R for sexual content and language”) put CGI underpants on actor Steve Zahn; in the movie itself, he was nude. Despite the “green band” assurance, the trailers often include material that is hardly G-rated. The trailer for the upcoming comedy “Extract” (“Rated R for language, sexual references and some drug use”), which for some inexplicable and inexcusable reason still carries the original green band “approved for all audiences” language, includes references to a part of the male anatomy and marital sexual frustration, and it depicts the main character smoking marijuana.
Now MPAA will make some effort to ensure “appropriate” audiences by matching the content of the trailer to the film it precedes in the theater. However, a trailer for a film rated PG-13 for violence may appear before a movie rated PG-13 for language, so that might not be an “appropriate” audience. And since most young people watch trailers online, there will be no controls whatsoever.
I asked the MPAA about this change. Elizabeth Kaltman, Vice President for
Corporate Communications, acknowledged in an email that they had not made any public announcement of the change, which was “intended to allow motion picture distributors and exhibitors greater freedom to accurately promote motion pictures to appropriate audiences while honoring our pledge to American parents that stronger advertising material will not reach inappropriate younger audiences. Whether a movie is rated G or PG, the appropriate audience tag still maintains that the trailer is appropriate for the viewing audience.”
There are still some glitches in the system. In addition to the PG-13 “Extract,” the trailer for the R-rated horror film “Sorority Girls” mistakenly has the “all audiences” green band but includes some material that is highly inappropriate for children. And it is available to anyone online.
I understand the frustration of the movie studios in trying to convey an accurate and appealing sense of a PG-13 or R-rated movie within the confines of an essentially G-rated trailer. And I recognize the way that the prevalence of almost-universally available red band trailers online has opened the door for previews that provide a more accurate sense of what is in the film. But it is absurd for the MPAA Ratings Board advertising rules to be so obfuscatory and coy with the “appropriate audiences” language. If the material in the trailer is judged to be at the same level of the feature it precedes, there is no reason not to assign a rating and descriptors to the trailer. The “Extract” trailer should begin with a caution that it is rated PG-13 for crude humor, sexual references, and drug use. That is my definition of appropriate.
To express your concerns about this change and ask that trailers reveal their rating, contact Chairman/CEO Dan Glickman:
MPAA
1600 Eye St., NW
Washington, DC 20006
(202) 293-1966 (main)
(202) 296-7410 (fax)
The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is circulating a petition to protest the marketing of GI Joe action figures promoting the new PG-13 movie “GI Joe.”
Yes, GI Joe was a toy for decades before the movie. But these action figures, specifically tied to characters in this very violent film are specifically targeted at young children to promote a movie that is completely inappropriate for them.
Since March, CCFC has logged over 3,000 ads on children’s TV channels for five PG-13 films: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen; Terminator Salvation; Star Trek; X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and the upcoming GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Last month CCFC sent another letter to the FTC documenting the continued failure of the movie industry’s self-regulation, and urging the Commission to take action.
