As we move on from early cinema we enter the more scandalous era of cinema. The more exploitive, sexual, and violent era of cinema. This led to a major increase in the need for movies to be rated properly as to not allow underaged people to see inappropriate content. This led creators to focus on the MPAA and the ratings they were giving out. Some of the ratings seemed unfair and these creators were not going to have it. The members of the MPAA are supposed to be kept secret as to hide them from external influences but, some people thought this was a little fishy. Anything remotely related to sex got an NC-17 rating even though when it came to violence it was mostly capped out with an R rating. You can have a soldier using twenty plus curse words and getting blown in half seeing his organs and bloods scattered and get an R rating but as soon as you put two people in a bed without clothes simulating a sexual encounter you get censored into an NC-17 rating. You can appeal it to try to get a better rating but most of them were unsuccessful. I wonder why that is?
In my opinion the MPAA was one of the most corrupt systems of its time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there were many systems that were much worse and much more important than movie ratings but it was corrupt nonetheless. What is it that makes the MPAA so corrupt you might ask, it is the fact that the MPAA board of raters are specifically kept secret to limit the influence they are exposed to, and after the entire board was identified they were all people on the top of the food chain for multiple different movie theaters. These people were giving bad ratings and censoring movies so they didn’t have to show them in their theaters and risk losing money.
My main question during this week was, “Why hasn’t anybody said or done anything before when they did?” My answer was given to me throughout the week even though I didn’t want to accept it. The people that were aware of the ratings actually agreed with their ratings. Most of the people on the board were rumored to have young children and that was their main defensive point. “Would you want your kid to see this type of thing while watching a movie?” To which most responded with the idea of not caring what their kid saw as long as they understood that what they were watching was indeed just a movie and not how things work in real life. The MPAA was censoring movies for a reason related to money and shielding it by claiming the censorship was for the betterment of our children. After the system was found out there was a major outrage which is understood from my point of view. The private investigator responsible for busting the MPAA corruption is a hero in my book. Cracking the case was a major step towards the movies we have today as well as reducing censorship and allowing creators to actually create what they want. Do you think the MPAA was justified in their decision to keep their board members secret? Do you think the people on the board being part of the theater industry was an unethical decision?
Mass Media & American Life 