MPAA Ratings are So, So Broken

One minor note that I forgot to mention about Code 46–the R rating for this film highlights how absurdly the MPAA’s (and related agencies’) rating system is broken. The rating reads, in full, ‘rated R for a scene of sexuality, including brief graphic nudity’.

Let’s get specific: there is no violence or swearing in Code 46. Excepting Tim Robbins’s bare chest, the nudity literally comprises one shot: a close-up of a woman’s mid-section. Her legs are closed, so the image isn’t the least bit gynocological. There are two or three brief sex scenes, but Samantha Morton always has a shirt on.

The MPAA (and its BC equivalent) is preventing teenagers from seeing an insightful and entertaining film because of a single crotch shot. They can go see Alien vs. Predator, which has plenty of ‘violence, language, horror images, slime and gore’, but apparently they’ll be corrupted by love scenes. They can go see the Bourne Supremacy (rated PG-13), which featues plenty of gun play and a gurgling, visceral strangulation, but heavy forbid they see a naked person.

What really irks me is that the MPAA is one of the few bodies of its type that doesn’t publish the details of its decisions. Surely the people who rate the films must make notes during their viewing–let’s see them. In fact, let’s make them compile those notes into a brief judgement for each film. Budget shouldn’t be an issue for an industry that grossed US $1 billion in June, 2004. Let them employ a few more out-of-work screenwriters and film students. If, as the MPAA claims, “ratings are meant for parents, no one else”, let’s arm parents with more than one sentences about a film’s content.

Here’s an explanation of the ratings system, formatted in the least Web-savvy manner possible. It’s also poorly written. Apparently “the X rating over the years appeared to have taken on a surly meaning”. Man, that’s one bad-tempered meaning. Don’t cross that meaning, or it’ll slap you upside the head. It also features a misuse of the odd term “rostrum”.

While reading up on the subject, I found BC’s classification site (part, not surprisingly, of the Ministry for Public Safety). In ratings, they usually follow the MPAA’s lead. They do, however, have a few of the very decision documents I’m referring to. Here’s one for The Passion of the Christ (PDF), which offers at least two or three paragraphs about the film’s content, including this one:

The Film Classification Office recognizes that The Passion of the Christ involves a rendering of historical events that are of deep and profound significance to many religious groups and individuals. The advisory about the film�s potential to offend has been applied as a caution to address the sensitivity inherent in the subject matter of the film.

They also have some examples of appeals from producers and distributors. Here (PDF), the Acting Director of the Film Classification Board discusses his ruling on that classic work of auteurship, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle:

The legislation states that an ’18A’ film will contain ‘frequent coarse language.’ I find that this film contains approximately 150 instances of ‘four letter words,’ blasphemy and racial slurs. I find, further, that the film contains dozens of instances of sexual dialogue. One scene of note involves two male characters discussing the possibility of having sex with one woman at the same time and how many ‘holes’ it should involve. I find that for an 88 minute film, this level of coarse language is ‘frequent.’

Well, there’s no arguing with that rating, is there? Why did they even bother appealing?

Movie Ratings Network has links to all the provinces’ film classification sites. Code 46 doesn’t appear to be playing yet in Alberta (nor in Manitoba or the Maritimes), but they do provide more information to their viewers. To their credit, Ontario classified Code 46 as 14A.

I’m going to email the BC Film Classficiation Board and ask them why they don’t publish decisions for all of the films released in this province.