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Movie ratings today seem like a standard way to guide audiences on what’s appropriate for certain ages. But behind the scenes, the rating system has a deep history of censorship in Hollywood. From the restrictive Hays Code to the evolution of the MPAA (now MPA) rating system, it’s clear that not all films are judged equally. Many believe the rating system is flawed, with inconsistent rules that favor certain studios over others.
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Easy, miss
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I've got you. You've got me! Who's got you? This film is rated PG
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I'm going to make this pencil disappear. This film is rated PG-13
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And this film? Do it! It's rated R. Because of these ratings, the lifespan of these films
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will be very different. Their box office returns will be impacted, their eventual TV reruns, and their ability
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to connect with fans. The rating a film receives can be a potential new lease on life or a death
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sentence. So who decides how movies are rated? And how did the idea of rating become so commonplace
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to begin with? Gentlemen, given its enormous expense, we don't want to send it to market
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except in the certainty that it will not offend any reasonable American regardless of faith or
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creed. The secret history of film ratings is a roller coaster of a story. To understand the
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breadth of the topic at hand, we have to go back to the start. The landscape of the early days of
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film resemble more of a circus sideshow than the theatrical exhibition world that we know today as
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a cultural institution. Many of the hallmarks of the industry started to develop in the early 1900s
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This period is usually referred to as the pre-code era. In the early days of the movie biz
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there was no governing or rating body. Each state had their own localized censorship board that
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deemed what was allowed to be played for the public. The films that were produced and released
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during this period utilized every trick in the book to get people to attend screenings
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Risqué and salacious content was a beaconing siren's call to the American people. Want to see
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a secretary turned into a risqué lady of the night in Safe in Hell? Or see criminal lifestyles
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glorified in the public enemy? Well, you could, and people did. They flocked to the exhibition
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of these films in such droves that the movie theater business was born in order to attempt
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to meet the demand This is what the people want Silent pictures are yesterday news By today standards the content of these silent pictures and early talkies might seem run but at the time this subject matter was highly taboo In 1922 all the major
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studios banded together and formed the Motion Pictures Distribution Association of America
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in order to fight off the rising calls for governmental oversight from concerned citizens
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and religious activist organizations. Presbyterian elder and former Postmaster General William Hayes
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was named as the head honcho of the burgeoning cinematic conglomerate due to his outspoken
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political views. Hayes would quickly earn the nickname the Motion Picture Czar for his shadowy
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dealings in nearly every aspect of the industry. That the production code adopted by the motion
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picture industry is designed to develop and to protect. In 1930, Hayes pushed forward the Motion
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Picture Production Code of moral censorship guidelines. As the name might imply, the code's
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sole purpose was to curb problematic or morally objectionable materials in the films that were
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released. All the major studios agreed to adhere to the code's guidelines in order to avoid the
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looming threat of governmental intervention. The guidelines were written by Father Daniel A. Lord
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a Jesuit priest, and Martin Quigley, a devout Catholic. And it doesn't take a religious theologian
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to deduce that the recommendations that these two men put forth here were going to have a specific
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bent. Unfortunately, the Hays Code became exceedingly powerful very quickly. Despite
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there being an effort to avoid outside censorship, it became the long arm of the law and evolved into
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a highly restrictive and puritanical censorship body. The acceptance of the Hays Code altered the
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movie industry forever. Its initial proposed purpose was to ensure that depictions of violence
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sexuality, and foul language were in good taste. However, this quickly got out of hand. For example
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filmmakers were not allowed to create narratives where the audience would have sympathy for criminals where the character would take the lord name in vain or men and women sleeping in the same bed These and numerous other points of contention would haunt the industry for over 30 years In 1952 the Supreme Court decided that the strictures the Hayes Code
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had been operating under were illegal and an infringement on the First Amendment rights of
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artists and filmmakers. This required a retooling of how Hollywood policed itself. In 1968
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the Supreme Court offered the opinion that local governments could not ban movies from being shown
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to adults. This was the straw that broke the camel's back, removing states from the ecosystem
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of what movies could be shown publicly and placing the onus on the film industry entirely
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The head of the Motion Picture Association of America, Jack Valenti, said today in New York
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that the film industry plans to set up a voluntary rating system designed to keep youngsters from
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seen undesirable film. Thus, the MPAA brought forward an age-gated rating system to allow movie
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theaters to accurately assess who was legally allowed to view what movies. The initial ratings
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were G, M, R, or X. These were all positioned as voluntary ratings, meaning that film production
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companies and studios didn't have to gain a rating from the MPAA. However, it would prove to be
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virtually impossible to gain widespread distribution if they did not. All of the ratings
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that were first created in 1968 are still virtually the same as today, with the notable exception of
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the M for Mature rating. This was later rebranded as PG, which stood for Parental Guidance. In 1984
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the PG-13 rating was rolled out. It was viewed as an attempt at a middle ground between the
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theoretically pseudo-all-ages PG rating and the R rating, which restricted viewers below the age
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of 17. Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ostensibly created the PG-13
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rating. You see, despite Raiders being a PG film, some of the content
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in Temple of Doom pushed too far for the ratings board It did not fit in the PG category It wasn really strong enough to be an R Spielberg convinced the MPAA to ultimately pull it back to a newly created rating that he
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suggested. I called Jack Valenti, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, and said
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can't there be an in-between rating? The PG-13 rating allowed filmmakers to produce slightly
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edgier material that was still viewed as commercially viable by the studios. You might
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be thinking to yourself that the days of the Hays Code's rampant puritanical censorship are a thing
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of the past. However, the MPAA's rating board, or as it's been rebranded today, the MPA, has issues
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all its own. The process of how a movie is rated is one simultaneously shrouded in secrecy and also
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very simple and plain. An 11-person board composed of individuals not working in the entertainment
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industry view and rate the films that are submitted to the board. Films are evaluated on a wide
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range of criteria. However, over the decades that the MPA has been issuing ratings, certain patterns
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and truisms have become self-evident. There weren't any clear set of standards that in a
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sense you were taught. The MPA shows favoritism toward major studio releases because it's funded
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and backed by them. They frown upon depictions of sexuality in any way while they are much more
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lenient on hyperviolence. Many filmmakers have expressed misgivings and frustration with the
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inconsistency and biased nature of how the MPA rates films. They feel that it's a governing body
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with no checks or balances, and that, in many ways, it has evolved into the Hays Code 2.0
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Is it a good thing that younger people with potentially impressionable minds are being
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protected from content that could warp their perspectives? Probably. However, at what cost
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It doesn't matter how many shadowy corporate faceless ratings boards or religious-fueled
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censorship boards attempt to stifle creative expression, there will always be a deeply
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seated human need to create art about the world around us
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