Real Monsters : Tackling The Beast Of Censorship

The film industry was like a toddler learning to walk. The community found it necessary to guide that walk according to its beliefs and values. Above all, a concerted effort was made to protect children. That was perhaps the good thing that arose out of the censorship of the early film theaters content. It is easy to understand the logic and the need to monitor content that would have an impact on children

Since film director, Steven Spielberg, introduced the PG-13 rating in 1984, ratings creep has infected films. Ratings creep allows material such as perverse language or mature content that would appear in an R rated film to make its way into films rated PG-13 (Hansen 273). In a content analysis that was conducted by three researchers they found that “[recent] studies of movie content have indicated that movies with ratings of G, PG, and PG-13, which are unrestricted for child audiences, have included increasing amounts of adult content . . . across the past decade” (Potts and Belden 267). In PG-13 rated films more material that is objectionable is appearing in the films. In an article for the Journal of Adolescent Health, the author writes, “[despite] the criterion that [‘] rough or persistent violence is absent [’] in PG-13 films, studies indicate that PG-13 contains equal, if not more, violence than R films” (Nalkur, Jamieson, and Romer 4). Ratings creep is something that can happen over time. The Production Code of the early Hollywood years saw a digression of censorship during the late 50s and early 60s when the committee started to make compromises allowing more elements that were objectionable to creep into films of that era. Because of the digression of the Production Code the MPAA president, Jack Valenti, decided to change the Production Code to the current rating system.

This sort of rating usually subverts common horror ratings as it is very low but this was requested by the film makers. The film starred Daniel Radcliff an actor who starred in the renowned harry potter series of films all rated at 12A so Radcliff’s fans that are usually younger were attracted to the film which aided in it’s lower rating the film makers wanted to appeal to this so the film was not as graphic as some other horror films but some parents and the BBFC still has some concerns for the children watching it at age of 12 because they found that supernatural being convincing children to kill themselves and murdering people would disturb younger children the children who wouldn’t usually watch horror films were brought by Radcliff another scene were concerns were raised was with the woman in black hanging herself from a noose and the young girl setting herself on fire with an oil lamp so they cut certain scenes darkened certain shots and reduced sound affects to achieve the lower rating which is all unconventional of a horror

The MPAA’s movie rating system has been progressively allowing movies to teach children immoral values and something must be done to fix this. The different topics on which the MPAA base their ratings on have skewed standards. One

Hollywood got rid of its self-imposing ‘production code.’ This allowed things like adult language, adult themes, sex, and violence to be put into the movies that Hollywood produced.

The MPAA rating system, which was created and is regulated by the Motion Picture Association of America, was set in place to help determine how old you have to be in order to view different movies (MPAA Ratings). This system is supposed to help determine whether a movie is deemed appropriate for different age levels, but most of the age groups are quite broad and how a person views the level of appropriateness can be biased. The current rating system was created in 1968, which replaced the original system called, “The Production Code” (also known as the “PCA” or the Production Code Administration) (Rocchi). Not all systems are perfect, which is why this one was revised and eventually turned into the more recent MPAA rating system.

All children are born with innocence; they have no knowledge of anything bad in the world. Some television programmers seem to oblivious to this fact. The morbid content shown on popular television shows and movies today is incriminating evidence of this. It is as if the concept of censorship is foreign to them. The legal definition of censorship is the act of banning any or all media resulting from the presumption that its content is perceived to be immoral by the Federal Government of the United States. Censorship involves the banning of any immoral content. Much of broadcasted media

What is the true definition for a rated PG-13 movie? My definition is Romeo and Juliet.The Motion Picture Association of America(MPAA) definition is if there is any language, violence,nudity, drug abuse, or strong sexual affection. Romeo and Juliet hit on 3 points violence, drug abuse, and the love scenes.

The book Censorship: Opposing Viewpoints edited by Andrea Nakaya explores opposing viewpoints and arguments made by different authors. It provides several arguments for and against my research paper. It helped me define what my opposing views are so I will know which arguments to present to make my point. The book has four chapters, contains 26 different articles and book excerpts in addition to the introduction and chapter prefaces which provides background material. The articles in each chapter are opinions of the individual authors, arguing for or against censorship of social, political and economic issues. Among these different chapters I chose the title above about government regulation because it is related to one of my sub topic in the research project paper. It supports my argument that “regulation” has become one of the most common tool used to restrict media freedom around the world.

According to the Motion Picture Association of America rated R stands for restrictive. No children 17 or under are allowed into the film unless they are with a parent. Since these films can contain sexual themes, sex talks, sexualized nudity, tough language, tough violence, and missionary sex. Now NC-17 stands for Adults only. No one under the age of 17 or young is allowed to see the film due the fact that it usually contains sexual acts like oral sex, anal sex, and etc (Film Rater).

If a movie is rated 12A, it means children under 12 can watch the movie if they are accompanied by an adult. There have been many complaints about some movies that are rated 12A due to the content in the films. The complaints are mainly about that children under 12, should not be exposed to some of the content included in the movie. Very popular films such as ‘The Bourne Identity’ and ‘The Dark Knight’ are rated 12A. However, these two films are considered by many people as to have been classified as a too low of an age rating, and they should have been rated higher. Children from as young as the age were brought along to watch the movies with suitable adults because the 12A rating allows them to have access to see the movie. A great deal of

PG-13 movies means Parental Guidance-13, parents should be with their children , as some material may not be suitable for children under 13.

First, some movies are rated R because of violence. “A percentage of kids these days play games on gaming devices that have violence and blood in them”. Living in our world today most teens already know what is going on and it is nothing new to them. “TV shows and video games show violence all the time

A PG-13 rated movie would contain examples of institutional classism (e.g. food deserts in low income areas) and prejudice towards the poor. However, it would not contain derogatory language directed toward the poor. The use of at least one homophobic slur (e.g. faggot, queer, dyke) would demand a PG-13 rating.

Furthermore, teens take the inappropriate and violent behavior too far. “…A 16-year-old California boy killed his and admitted to investigators that he had gotten the idea from the movie Scream” (Surette) Restricted movies put bad images and ideas in teenager’s heads, and in extreme cases, people get hurt of killed because of it. On the flip side, teens say that they can tell the difference between movies and real life. Some teens may be able to tell the difference, but what about the other teens? Until they are mature enough to tell right from wrong real from fake, teenagers should not be able to go to R rated movies alone. To sum it up, restricted movies are inappropriate for teens and kids.