Georgia Gordon
“This Film is Not Yet Rated”
The history of the Rating System
For my final
project, I wanted to research the history of the rating system for movies in
America, and how that system has evolved over the years. Movies with “adult content” that have a
certain rating today, would have had to have a rating, twenty/thirty/forty/fifty
years ago, that was stricter. Because of
this, more questionable content is being allowed in films under different ratings. For example, movies like A Clockwork Orange, would still be rated X today if the system had
not changed, and would therefore be classified as almost pornographic. The rating system and the way it has changed have
affected movies and filmmakers. When
they make their movies, they have to think about what rating their movie will
get which can ultimately affect them at the box office. This puts a good restraint on what kind of
material circulates to the media, and protects children and teenagers.
The Motion Picture Association of America
(MPAA), an American trade association that represents the six big Hollywood
Studios, was founded in 1922 and is the administrator of the current US rating
system (Motion Picture Association, 2012, para. 1). Although films are not required to have a
rating, they usually do, since Movie Theaters typically do not show non-rated
films. Therefore, the rating system is
important for filmmakers.
The MPAA ratings that have been in
place since 1990 are:
G (General Audiences)
PG (Parental Guidance Suggested/Some material might not be suitable for
children)
PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned/Some material may be inappropriate for
children under the age of 13)
R (Restricted/Under 17 not admitted without parent or adult
guardian)
NC-17 (No One 17 and Under Admitted).
(MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 5)
How did this system come
about? Let us look at the original
ratings (1968):
G: General Audiences – Suggested for General Audiences – (all ages)
M: Mature Audiences – Suggested for Mature Audiences – Parental
Discretion Advised
R: Restricted – People Under 16 Not Admitted Unless Accompanying Parent
or Adult Guardian
X: Adults Only – People Under 18 will not be Admitted (changed to 17
later that year)
(MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 9)
At first the ratings were just “G” “M”
and “R”, so that parents would have three rating to choose from to take their
kids to (MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 10). However, the National
Association of Theater Owners proposed that there be a category for adults only
(X) to stay clear of legal issues (MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 10).
Therefore the “X” rating was not actually a trademark of the MPAA (MPAA
Rating System, 2012, para. 10).
Actually, any producer that did not send in their movie for a rating
could classify it as “X” (MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 10). The reason the “M” was changed was before it
was confusing for parents (MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 12). They were not sure of the distinction between
“M” and “R” and therefore “GP” was created (MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 12).
The ratings used from 1970 to 1972 were:
Rated G: All Ages Admitted. General Audiences.
Rated GP: All ages Admitted. Parental Guidance Suggested.
Rated R: Restricted. Under 17 Requires Accompanying Parent or Adult
Guardian.
Rated X: No One Under 17 Admitted.
(MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 13)
1970 was also the year in which the
age for which you could see an “R” or an “X” rated movie moved from 16 to 17 (MPAA
Rating System, 2012, para. 14). Shortly
after, it was changed to 18 for “X” in order to stop underage kids from seeing
pornography (MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 14). From the years of 1972-1984, “GP” was changed
to “PG” in 1972 after the MPAA added a description for GP that basically said
the movies “contained material not generally suitable for pre-teenagers” (MPAA
Rating System, 2012, para. 15). When the
MPAA added this content, parents thought that “GP” was not a suitable rating
for all ages like it said, since it now contained material not suitable
typically for pre-teens, indirectly changing the rating to PG (MPAA Rating
System, 2012, para. 15).
So, the ratings
from 1972 to 1984 were:
Rated G: General Audiences – All Ages Admitted.
Rated PG: Parental Guidance Suggested – Some Material May Not be
Suitable for Pre-Teenagers.
Rated R: Restricted – Under 17 Requires Accompanying Parent or Adult
Guardian.
Rated X: No One Under 17 Admitted.
(MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 16)
The PG-13 rating was added after movies
such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins came out with a “PG” rating (MPAA
Rating System, 2012, para. 17). These
movies had a lot more violence and gore than had been seen before for movies
with a “PG” rating and parents freaked out about this (MPAA Rating System, 2012,
para. 17). All this caused the director
of those two movies, Steven Spielberg, to try to convince the MPAA to add a
rating between PG and R, which is smart since there is a pretty big difference
between the two (MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 17). The first film that was circulated with a
PG-13 rating was Red Dawn (1984) (MPAA
Rating System, 2012, para. 18). The week
after that, Dreamscape and The Woman in Red came out with the same
rating (MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 18).
The first movie to actually be given the rating was The Flamingo Kid (1984) but it was not released until later that
year (MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 18).
Therefore, the film rating system from 1984 to 1986 was as follows:
Rated G: General Audiences – All Ages Admitted.
Rated PG: Parental Guidance Suggested – Some Material May Not be
Suitable for Children.
Rated PG-13: Parents Are Strongly Cautioned to Give Special Guidance
for Attendance of Children Under 13 – Some Material may be Inappropriate for
Children Under 13.
Rated R: Restricted – Under 17 Requires Accompanying Parent or Adult
Guardian.
Rated X: No One Under 17 Admitted.
(MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 19)
What I found to be most intriguing
was the way that the Rated NC-17, which we use today, came about. In the early years of the rating system, we
know that “X” was commonly used to describe non-pornographic films with adult
content such as Midnight Cowboy
(1969), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Fritz the Cat (1972) and Last Tango in Paris (1973) (MPAA Rating
System, 2012, para. 20). This was a fine
rating to use, until pornographic films started to use that rating sometimes on
their own films (MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 20). “X” and “XXX” being popular in pop-culture,
and subsequently movie theaters did not want to put out movies with that rating
because people would assume they would be pornographic (MPAA Rating System,
2012, para. 20). This led to the rating “NC-17”
(No Children Under 17 Admitted) as its official rating for movies with content
only suitable for adults (MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 22).
Finally, the rating system used from 1990 to
the late 1990s were
Rated G: General Audiences – All Ages Admitted.
Rated PG: Parental Guidance Suggested – Some Material May Not be
Suitable for Children.
Rated PG-13: Parents Strongly Cautioned – Some Material May be
Inappropriate for Children Under 13.
Rated R: Restricted – Under 17 Requires Accompanying Parent or Adult
Guardian.
Rated NC-17: No Children Under 17 Admitted.
(MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 23)
(In the late 90s, the “No Children
Under 17 Admitted” was changed to “No one 17 and under admitted”, which made it
more strict and gave the public a better warning.) (MPAA Rating System, 2012,
para. 24)
I became really interested in this
topic after watching A Clockwork Orange.
I absolutely loved the movie, but I could not believe that it was not
rated higher than R. Personally, I tend
to be shocked by what gets to be shown in a lot of the R films today, especially
when it comes to sex. This was one of
those films for me. At some parts of the
movie, especially rape or sex scenes containing nudity, it seemed like the
rating of “R” was way too lenient. This
leniency of the ratings has recently been a concern for other people as well. The MPAA, in recent years, has been accused
of what is called a “ratings creep” (MPAA Rating System, 2012, para. 53). This is just what it sounds like. Films that fall into a certain category now
tend to contain more “questionable” material than the films that appeared in
that same category two decades ago. A
study done by the “Harvard School of Public Health” in 2004 showed that films
released between 1992 and 2003 contained more profanity, sex, and violence (MPAA
Rating System, 2012, para. 53). The
results basically indicated that because the same movie that would have been in
a higher rating category a few decades ago is now in a lower rating, but
contains the same amount of profanity, sex, and violence (MPAA Rating System,
2012, para. 53). This has been my opinion
as well in the past couple of years. I
find myself walking out of theaters thinking, “That was rated PG-13? Or, “That
should have been rated X!” Sometimes I
feel tricked by the system. However, I
feel like a hypocrite. In a way, even
though I believe it should have probably had a rating higher than “R”, that was
only for some scenes, and if it did have a rating higher than “R”, I probably
would have never watched it, and that is exactly what these filmmakers are dealing
with (people watching or not watching a movie due to its rating).
A Clockwork Orange is probably my
favorite movie. I absolutely LOVED it
and thought it was so interesting. I
definitely found myself getting lost in that “future Britain” world and I know
it will be a movie I never forget.
However, with that said, I found myself wishing that it had contained
less sex and nudity etc. Even though
that was a big part of the film, I want to watch it again, but because of some
of the content in the film, I find myself having to skip through a lot of parts
which makes watching the film difficult.
After thinking about this movie in particular, I thought it was funny
that in the Wikipedia page for the rating system, A Clockwork Orange is the
second of four films listed that were rated “X” in earlier years.
As you can see
from the progression over the years and the rating changes, more “adult”
material is able to slip through the cracks.
At first, the rating system was a good way to put constraints on
material in films, and it still does that, but because it is a lot less strict
than it was many years ago, the question remains if movies given a rating of “R”
or “PG-13” should actually be rated higher.
I believe a higher rating would definitely affect them in the box
office, and I believe that to be the main reason that movies that have material
in them that I would think warrants them to be “X” are instead rated “R” and
the same thing with the “R” movies that maybe should be “PG-13”.
Works Cited
“Motion Picture Association of America.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
11 May 2012. Web. 15 May 2012.
“Motion Picture Association of America film rating system.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 14 May 2012. Web. 15 May 2012.
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