I am in favor of any improvement in the information available to parents. If this means the end of the dreaded, “Rated PG-for thematic elements,” which required a degree in semiotics to parse, that’s very good news. As I told The Christian Science Monitor,
It is a step, says Nell Minow, film critic for Movie Mom, a website for family entertainment guidance. “But a very small one,” she says, adding that what parents really want is reliable and consistent information about films. The arbitrariness of a ratings system that allocates a PG-13 to a comedy and then an R rating to a drama with essentially the same content “leaves parents not knowing what to trust,” she says.
However, there are inherent limits to an industry-run rating system that defiantly refuses to consider the expertise of child development specialists or teachers in assigning the ratings. I do not see anything in these announcements that makes me feel any more confident that the arbitrariness so compellingly examined in the Kirby Dick documentary, “This Film is Not Yet Rated” has been addressed. The MPAA’s absurd view that one or two f-words are permitted in a PG-13 movie as long as they do not refer to sex, the inconsistent standards applied to independent films and documentaries, the appeals process that gives film-makers a chance to ask for reconsideration but not parent groups, and the inclusion of material in a PG-13 comedy that would get an R in a drama are problems that are not addressed by these changes.
It is worth noting that the two key elements of the Boston Marathon bombs were both features of recent movies. “Four Lions” was about a terrorist attack at a marathon. “Act of Valor” explained how ball bearings could increase the damage from a simple, cheap, easy to make bomb exponentially. Both movies had strong anti-terrorist messages, but that doesn’t mean that was how they were received by all viewers.
We don’t know if the person or people who planted the bombs in Boston saw those films. But we do know that there is a multi-billion dollar industry called advertising devoted to the idea that people’s ideas and behavior are influenced by messages in the media. The MPAA should be a part of the conversation about the best way for parents and moviegoers to understand the context as well as the content of films and make wise decisions about what they want to see.
MPAA Head Chris Dodd Speaks at the National Press Club
Posted on February 16, 2013 at 6:43 pm
Yesterday Chris Dodd, head of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), spoke at the National Press Club, which prepared movie poster cookies in his honor. As a member of the club who writes about movies, I was invited to watch from the head table. Dodd, who was a Connecticut Senator for 30 years (his father also represented Connecticut in the Senate), now runs the trade association for the film industry, which includes lobbying Congress and the Senate on matters like piracy and copyright and assigning ratings from G to NC-17. He spoke eloquently on “why movies matter.” As an art form, he said, it is a “spectacular convergence” of visual arts, language arts, and music, attracting some of the most talented people in the world who want to paint on one of the largest and most stimulating canvases ever created. They “tell stories that help us make sense of our world” and are “a vehicle to raise awareness of social and political issues.”
He emphasized the importance of the movie and television production industry to the US economy. There is a 7 to one export/import ratio, higher than in any other sector. “For every unfathomably rich and beautiful star” there are thousands of people who are employed by the industry, more than 2 million, who have careers, not just jobs, many of which are good paying jobs even for those without a college degree. Also, movies brand America in the eyes of the world, communicating our openness and opportunity. He quoted one man who told him that he did not agree with much of what the US does, but had to admire the way our filmmakers are so open in their own critiques of America and its policies. “Your movies examine, ridicule, and challenge public institutions — and get awards for it!”
And he said that every movie is hand-crafted. Movies also inspire unique technological breakthroughs. Ang Lee had to wait 12 years from the time he first wanted to make “Life of Pi” into movie until the technology could be developed to make it work.
Dodd spoke of the need to balance the “free and open internet,” which he supports, with protection of intellectual property. “Free and open cannot be synonymous with working for free.”
Asked about the responsibility the movie industry bears for its portrayal of violence and the impact that has on audiences, especially children and teenagers, he said with evident feeling that Newtown affected him personally — he once represented the Sandy Hook community. And Connecticut is the seventh largest producer of guns. “It is not an abstraction to me.” But his comments were on the abstract side — along the lines of “we of course want to be part of the conversation,” emphasizing the “slippery slope” of content regulation, and pointing to the lack of support for the mentally ill and their families as a more important problem. “We provide choice. Not every movie is for everyone.” The MPAA supports educating the audience about the tools it already makes available for control. Similarly, he was not willing to commit to any overhaul of the MPAA’s unnecessarily obscure, inconsistent, and biased toward the big studios ratings system. He also dodged specifics in answering questions about privacy and copyright extension.
Breitbart Documentary Delayed Over Dispute with MPAA on the F-Word
Posted on October 10, 2012 at 9:28 am
A new documentary, “Hating Breitbart,” has delayed its release as the producers argue with the MPAA Ratings Board over the “f-word.” According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film about the late conservative provocateur and internet mogul Andrew Breitbart was originally given an R for language that includes various epithets and the use of the f-word by and about the controversial new media pioneer. They removed many of the f-words used by other people, leaving in four f-words used by Breitbart, and resubmitted the film, but were unable to persuade the ratings board to give them a PG-13. Director Andrew Marcus told the Hollywood Reporter, “I scrubbed everybody else’s use of the word except for four by Andrew, because it’s essential to who he was. He was passionate, and he wasn’t polished.” They cited other PG-13 films that had strong material as precedent, but the MPAA has always resisted appeals based on ratings given to other movies. Marcus says he will release the film next week with an R-rating if he is unable to get a PG-13.
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)
Doctor Group Objects to Smoking in Movies for Kids
Posted on November 11, 2008 at 10:00 pm
USA Today has a story about smoking in movies: A new study by the American Medical Association Alliance, the volunteer branch of the AMA, finds that over the past six years more than half of the movies geared toward children feature characters smoking. In more than a quarter of the movies, actors light up cigars.
The study’s own figures show that while the majority of PG and PG-13 films show characters smoking, it has decreased since 2007, when a stricter rating policy from the MPAA went into effect. MPAA spokesman Seth Oster takes issue with the study. He says his organization’s own four-year analysis of 3,400 films found that of the 1,938 movies that featured smoking, 75% were rated R. In addition, he notes, the MPAA has added phrases such as “glamorizes smoking” and “pervasive smoking” in its ratings. “We have incorporated smoking as a factor on par with other issues like language, violence and sexual situations,” Oster says. “The motion picture industry takes very seriously the issue of smoking in films.”
The AMAA and American Lung Association would like an R rating for any film with smoking unless it is a biographical film or a movie addressing the dangers of tobacco.
