One driver’s license forgotten at home and our tragic heroine’s fate is sealed. There, at the ticket booth, I shift my weight nervously from one foot to the other and pull my shoulders up a little straighter to prove that I am, in fact, old enough to watch an R-rated movie. I am wearing the same yellow J.Crew cardigan that every saccharine, overbearing kindergarten teacher owns, grinning toothily to match, my MCard handed over the counter as a peace offering. Clearly, I am not a hooligan spitting in the face of the law and all things good and kind just for kicks and giggles.
The cashier doesn’t think so. He returns my MCard without even pretending to look sorry, my friend and I leave and get consolation Starbucks instead, and I still have not seen “Straight Outta Compton.”
The Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) Classifications and Ratings Administration was originally established as a way for parents to determine what was appropriate for their kids. An admirable goal, really. But the organization has historically faced criticism for obvious bias in assigning ratings. It’s sexist (Tina Fey had to fight for the right to say “vagina” in a non-sexual context in “Mean Girls,” but sometimes dick jokes make the cut) and homophobic (“Love is Strange,” featuring a gay couple, received an R-rating, despite having no full-on nudity). In general, people agree that ratings are easy on violence and hard on sex.
But what’s more interesting is the effect these ratings have on how the public interacts with film. It’s obvious that high-schoolers are already inundated with advertising and media imagery about sex, yet those same teens aren’t supposed to watch movies that depict teenage sexuality with sensitivity and from the perspective of the individual agent. It’s clearly not a matter of protecting kids from getting these messages too early. Violence does have its influence: you see little boys playing soldiers and fighting each other, getting desensitized to violence because Matt Damon blew up a car and it looked so sick! Why can we watch people get shot, blown up and ooze blood and gore, but not two consenting adults getting it on? Statues of naked women litter every major art museum, but movies somehow face a different treatment just because of one organization’s ratings system.
Also, as I so unfortunately faced, the way movies are distributed adds a second layer of censorship, too. Many theaters require ratings in order to screen a movie, which is why even though ratings are not required, they are almost universally enforced by theater chains as their standard practice, though it is possible for parents to make an active effort to bypass the rules by accompanying their kids to the movie. I can hear you already: “But my parents let me watch R-rated movies since I was like, 7! I basically grew up on horror movies!” OK, cool, good for you. I’m sure there are lots of parents who would happily take their kids to R-rated movies, but I know mine saw ratings as a way for them to determine appropriate content without wasting time previewing every movie I wanted to watch (which is fair, given that’s the entire purpose of industry ratings) and would trust the system, censoring based on what it said.
Would theaters and parents still police movies if ratings didn’t exist? Absolutely. But at least they would do it objectively, based on content rather than taking a flawed system’s opinions as end-all, be-all guidelines. A contrast would be looking at how libraries do it. Books, too, are important in spurring radical movements and ideas, so why do movies have different treatment? Anyone can borrow Henry James’s “Sexus,” Anais Nin’s journals, or “50 Shades of Grey” from the library right now and face only the librarian’s concealed smirk. The distribution center of the content does not regulate; the individuals do.
Arguably, a broken rating system has become a lot less of a problem with the advent of online streaming and torrenting. Given an iPhone and decent Internet connection, an industrious 12-year old can unearth more secrets than NASA — illegal download of “The Hangover” included. Obviously pirating isn’t ideal, but it does help make access to R-rated movies easier, especially for people who live in small or conservative towns whose only way to see such movies would be through the theater.
Still, it’s important to recognize how the implementation of the ratings system wrongly prevents access to movies. It would be better for film companies and consumers alike if teenagers didn’t have to turn to pirating just to access R-rated movies. Further, considering that most of the nominees for the Best Picture Oscar category are rated R because the reason they make such an emotional impact is that they do touch on difficult topics, it’s important to recognize that our current definition of explicit content should change based on its artistic and cultural value. Ratings should offer suggestions, not build barriers.