Let’s replace the MPAA’s ratings board!
I watched a movie last night called “This film is not yet rated”. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend you do. It is a documentary about the MPAA’s ratings system, the ratings board, and the ratings appeal board. It is all incredibly interesting, and you will be surprised what you don’t know about how films are rated. This movie is available at NetFlix.
Although I don’t have any proof myself, the film indicated that if a movie were to receive the NC-17 rating (which is a replacement for the X rating) they could loose millions of dollars. The bigger impact, which probably relates to the money loss is that the movie will not get to as large an audience as PG-13 or R rated movie as many places won’t show NC-17 movies. So there is big money involved in the ratings system as it is today.
One of the things that stands out the most to me was the fact that the ratings board does not have a defined set of standards for rating movies. What is basically amounts to is a room full of anonymous individuals making spot judgments on what they see or think they see on the screen. According to the MPAA website, they have a list of what the ratings mean, but in the movie the examples given indicated that there is far more individual judgment applied by the ratings board. It seems that films from the big studios get far more leeway and feedback then films produced independently.
Why not have a system where there is a clear list of criteria that a movie is objectively judged by? That way anyone can take the list and see exactly how the rating was applied to the movie. If you were to couple that with a brief synopsis of the content of the movie I think that parents would have a better way of determining if they want their children to see the movie, which is supposed to be what the ratings are all about. Even this is questioned by the film, as it seems that there are far more implications tied to a films rating than just protecting children.
Another thing that really struck me was the way that sex and violence are rated. I watch plenty of movies, and I can certainly tell that violent content is far more prevalent than sex. To me that seems strange. Here we are in a society where you are constantly barraged with images of violence and you hear about how we, and our children are more and more desensitized to it. If you are religious, then violence is a sin, and so is sex. So then why are violence and violent situations rated far more lightly then scenes involving sex?
Why do we still use the MPAA to rate our movies? Why doesn’t someone create an independent ratings system that has well documented and objective criteria with which they can apply a rating to a movie? Why is sex worse for children to see than violence?
The film itself is rated NC-17 by the MPAA, which is mostly due to the fact that they show and compare scenes in the film that have been rated NC-17. However these scenes perfectly illustrate the inconsistencies in the ratings system. See it and judge for yourself.
Al Franken - no way!
So according to the article at the Star Tribune, Al Franken is going to run for Senator in Minnesota.
Wow… I can’t even begin to count the reasons that I would not vote for this guy. Many of the reasons are the same reasons that I would not vote for Rush Limbaugh. Mr. Franken is a political entertainment personality, not a politician. His political views are driven by what will give him the most exposure and make him the most money, not what is good for Minnesota and the people who live here.
I think it all started with Jesse Ventura. Mr. Franken must think we are easy pickings since we were stupid enough to elect a sports entertainer as Governor. I hope that Mr. Franken finds that Minnesotans have wisened up after that whole thing. I don’t think that we are as excited to elect another political screwball as we were pre-Ventura.
At least I hope that we have…
And Clint Eastwood has never ran here…
It’s Election Day - go vote!
Typically I tend to shy away from political discussions. The problem with political discussions is they usually degrade into personal attacks or spouting of the same old rhetoric. It seems the first casualty of politics is the loss of one persons ability to form their own opinions, based on what they believe and the things they have learned from others based on civil conversation.
Another trap that seems to have us firmly in it’s grasp is the concept of political parties. If you decide to align with a political party, you must do so based on a few issues that you decide are the most important to you, and concede the rest of the issues. I know that for me personally it’s impossible for me to side with Democrats or Republicans because neither party could possible represent all of my beliefs without compromise. I believe based on conversations that I have had with others that I am not alone in this, and today people will all compromise some of their beliefs to select their representatives in government.
I believe that if you removed the extremes, and took the population that was left, we would mostly all agree on a majority of the issues facing this country, and what we agree to would not be accurately represented by either political party.
The reality of the choice we are given on election day is the same choice we are given on every election day, Democrat or Republican. If we ever want to have a real choice, we need to rid ourselves of the compromise that is political parties.
