Why Do Movies Actually Have Ratings?
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- Опубликовано: 11 июл 2024
- Movie Ratings today seem like a standard way studios let audiences know what is appropriate for certain ages. Though this seemingly arbitrary system has a deep history of censorship in Hollywood. From the early days of The Hayes Code and it's evolution into the movie ratings system we have today, it seems there are different rules for different players when it comes to releasing feature films. But how exactly did we get to where we are today, and do we even need the movie rating system anyay?
#movies #movierating #nerdstalgic
Sources:
www.acmi.net.au/stories-and-i...
www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Cod...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hays_Code
www.democratandchronicle.com/... 
Развлечения
I still chortle at the fact that The Lion King is G-rated but films like Up are PG.
Up: deeply emotional exposition, wild adventures, the vague threat of dogs hurting people without showing it
The Lion King: DRAGS you through watching a child watch his father get murdered, and in the height of his grief and absolute despair, gaslit to believe that he’s the one responsible
*"This Film is Not Yet Rated"* is a fascinating documentary about the hypocrisy of the rating system, and 17 years after its release, I feel like nothing has changed about the system since then.
To the contrary, I think they have gotten even more prudish and parochial.
@@misternobody3481That's a very good point. I've seen shows that get away with more raunchy sex and gory violence than any R-rated film in the last decade or so.
@@michaelstrong5383 TV-MA is more likely to have sex and violence than even an R rated movie.
Yesss. I stumbled across it in Netflix one day. It was fascinating and I agree, nothing has changed
The thing that surprised me the most about that documentary is that it showed how arbitrary and messed up the whole ratings system was - and then (shockingly) nothing at all changed.
Guys Spielberg was SOOOO influential, they made an entire new rating for his film. So cool.
Has anyone else noticed how rarely they give "G" ratings anymore? Only three movies so far this year have received a "G" and only one did last year. I haven't even heard of these movies.
The main reason why so many family films (including animated films) are rated PG is almost always because of “an intense moment”. Meanwhile, The Lion King has an intense stampede sequence that ends with a parent dying and it gets rated G 😒
@@socklock1957 Another example is Hunchback of Notre Dame. The villain kills the main character's mother at the beginning, has sexual feelings towards a woman, sings a song about said thoughts, and plans to commit genocide to a city.
_AND IT'S RATED G!!_
The only way a movie gets a G rating is if the movie is 100% for children, to the point it's too young for adults
@@ThatFanBoyGuy Which is counter to the rating's literal meaning. The G officially stands for General, as in, general audiences of all ages should enjoy this film. It used to apply to movies that were kid-friendly, but nonetheless could contain heavy subject matter that the adults could appreciate as well, so long as no excessively violent imagery, or lewdness, was there.
I once wrote a high school research paper on the MPAA ratings and their major flaws, namely, that they were widely inconsistent (which you mentioned) and that if the purpose was to be aware of what possible content was in the film for yourself or your children, it did a pretty terrible job because PG-13 could mean Avengers, which easily attracts even children, and yet PG-13 could also indicate borderline pornographic material. Yeah, actually, like you mentioned, inconsistency with portrayal of violence vs sex. People take these ratings at face value, even though the meaning of these ratings have changed throughout time. 16 Candles still has a PG rating and has not been re-rated to my knowledge, but may be considered pretty much R to parents today considering it had teenagers engaged in drugs, a topless scene, etc. And yet the new Super Mario Bros. movie has the same rating oddly because G rating means practically nothing anymore.
The issue lies in that ratings are meant to warn viewers in a simple way of the content of the film, and yet parents are not only not told anything about what's in the film from these ratings but they are made by the morals, values, and backgrounds of whatever parents are in the MPAA (now MPA apparently) at the given time. So, other parents are deciding what is appropriate for your own child, instead of you who knows your child, their development, triggers, and what they can handle. If the goal is to create an objective rating based on consistent criteria, why bring in average viewers to begin with? That sounds more like a test screening. And even if you do, they should be evaluating it based on set criteria or else the ratings themselves should change and update to reflect the changes in standards or morals.
It's incredible to me that sex, a very normal thing, is seen as worse than murder, a very non-normal thing
@@santiagogarza8121yea in many other countries they rate a film a higher age if it has violence, but aren’t as concerned with sex, which is how I personally think it should be.
The one thing that really bugs me about the ratings system is that family films in the past decade or so, for whatever reason, make an attempt to “earn” their PG rating. This despite the fact that the MPA changed its rules in 2010 to basically mean that a family film can have any sort of conflict whatsoever and automatically get a PG, thus making the apparent fear of getting a G rating increasingly unnecessary. You don’t need to have LeBron James say “hell” or SpongeBob describe a situation as “crappy” to get the PG rating because you’re basically guaranteed to get it just for the slightest bit of trauma. And given the fact the new PAW Patrol movie has a PG when the first had a G, the latter rating is basically extinct now, yet the studios are still gonna “earn” the former anyway
And that creates a problem with some movies like Puss in Boots 2 which actually requires parental guidance
In the movie Cars, Lighting McQueen says he’s in hillbilly hell, but the movie is still rated G.
It still cracks me up that Monty Python and the Holy Grail got a PG rating. Today, the Sir Gallahad the Pure scene alone would push it to PG-13.
Now follow up this one with a video on the ESRB!
I know. It's so ridiculous that, at the very least, they don't even re-rate movies. There's SO MANY movies that would've been PG-13 if PG-13 existed at the time they were made. Monty Python, Jaws, Indiana Jones, Gremlins. Gremlins and Indiana Jones helped CREATE the PG-13 rating but they don't even get to have it.
In defence of ratings, if we didn't have them I'd have likely watched movies like Alien or Psycho when I was a kid. And let me tell you, I was NOT the kind of child who could've handled it 😅
And then there are movies like The Birds which is PG-13. The movie has a bloodied corpse with it’s eyes pecked and all you can see are the sockets.
Who cares about you? There’s always money or politics behind Every decision made that affects your life.
Jaws was rated PG, and it had some very gruesome scenes.
And then there's Airplane, which was also PG, but had a shot of female nudity at one point.
I say just let kids watch everything and deal with it. Enough with the constant coddling. Little Jimmy's head won't explode if he sees a pair of boobs.
Raings and censorship should both be abolished.
It’s weird what these studios allow and what they don’t
In the UK we don't have PG13 it is simply 12 for you need to be 12. I remember when Spiderman came out in early 2000s we got 12A which effectively became you need a parent with if under 12.
Canada has a similar ratings system. Here, PG still is a rating that a film earns, functioning similarly to a 12A rating in the UK, and then we also have 14A and 18A ratings, and R actually means that a film is highly restricted.
The age rating of some of the movies that has been made makes no sense. What is the purpose of the MPAA if they can't even rate movies properly.
Censorship.
In the past, you practically had to kill someone to get them to hand over their freedom. Now, all you got to do is convince them that "its for their own good".
It's incredible to me that sex, a very normal thing, is seen as worse than murder, a very non-normal thing
Nudity and violence really aren't comparable in film. In violent films, except for the odd broken toe people on screen aren't really getting hurt, but the nudity on screen is real. If we were actually watching real violence, those would be snuff films, which is far more taboo than any nudity.
The comparison doesn’t really line up because nudity and sex are regular parts of life. Violence like we see in movies is something most of us will never witness. The depictions of real violence and real nudity are not the same thing. Also I don’t think rating boards react any differently to cgi nudity compared to real nudity
But who is hurt by nudity? What irreversible damage does it cost to film?
@@user-zd2kl9yg4v it hurts the actor doing the nudity. Often young women are pressured into doing it early in their careers to get a leg up, and as soon as they get the chance, they refuse to do it anymore.
If nudity is essential to the plot most actors accept it (im not ok with them being pressured into it) & to me thats ok as its part of the storytelling. Same can be said of violence but we're much more accepting of it so often it gets exagerated. The main difference? Violence is celebrated, sex is taboo
The other issue is audience reaction. Nudity/sexuality can sexually arouse somebody in the audience. Nobody (or at least rarely) gets the urge to kill somebody after watching a murder in a movie.
I suppose I hadn't really considered the "why" behind the ratings system before. Thank you for an insightful look into this.
God be with you out there everybody. ✝️ :)
I'd love to see a retcon of old movie ratings. But I'm sure there would be hell to pay if that happened.
That has happened before. The Birds is now rated PG-13.
Yes, and Watership Down was recently re-rated up to a PG
@@BlondeCurlsBlueEyes Which still makes little sense considering PG is pretty much the new G. Even an incredibly inoffensive movie like the new Mario Bros movie, which has zero bad language, blood, sex, or anything that could be even remotely be considered inappropriate, especially by today's standards, has a PG rating in the U.S. What in the world does a "G" movie look like anyway? Watership Down is the type of movie that looks nice on the surface but traumatizes kids.
ET got rated up on re-release, ironically with changes to make it more child-friendly.
I think as much as the MPAA tries to restrict kids from watching certain movies...there are just as many ways for those kids to watch them. And hey, if the kid is mature, what's the worst that could happen? (By kid I mean reasonably aged teen, leave kiddoes out of this).
Anyone else tired of every streaming show being Mature. I love a mature movie or show when the subject makes sense, but now every show is full of f-words and nudity, and honestly feels like it was written by 14 year old boy who thinks he's being edgy.
I have been wondering for YEARS why pretty much every movie had the logo at 4:55 at the end of the credits! It bugged me so much!
I think movies should have levels for violence, language etc… because everybody is different and the current rating system clearly doesn’t work.
In Denmark, our ratings are A (appropriate for all), 7 (appropriate for all, but not recommended for children under 7), 11, and 15 (neither allowed for children under those ages). I have a couple of DVDs that say 18, but I'm pretty sure those are ratings from other countries.
I quite like that system, even compared to mine. In Canada, we have, technically, the same ratings as the US, but the names are slightly altered for the 3 highest ratings (14A replacing PG-13, 18A replacing R, and R replacing X), and the ratings can differ depending on which province you're in. Also, PG ratings usually still mean something in this country.
I think it's safe to say a lot of contention these days revolves around the ambiguity of the PG rating. Even the most kid friendly movies feel an obligation to throw at least one dirty joke in to bump up the rating. No one wants a G rating, because "that's for baby movies."
It seems like the rating of a movie is more based on a set list than just opinions. The only main thing I would say is based on opinion is the level of violence. With language, one F word is allowed in PG-13 movies but anymore than that and it is R. Only butts are to be shown in PG-13 movies and anything more than that (especially sexual) is R (yes, I know about Fifth Element and am surprised how that was able to get a PG-13 rating). Maybe it just has gotten more settled in the standards lately compared to how it was before.
Same with titanic that got a pg 13 aswell
The entertainment would be so much better without the hays code and the comic code authority. The last season of Riverdale critics the cca very clearly.
Watch R rated movies from the early to mid seventies like “the Last Detail” and it’s like the creators are going down the list of things that they now were allowed to do and including it in the film. They all had nude scenes, drug use and tons of foul language. That’s part of the reason they are so good!😊
That was during the time when the rating system was first introduced, and directors pushed the envelope of what they could do in their movies.
This was the most ridiculous thing that was ever made for the american cinema, it's just like censorship, but directed to producers, not for the public. It surely limited the creativity of the directors and also limited the options of the public. Many themes that could have been made as good movies where tonned down just because some religious guys think every child is dumb
Spielberg calling and saying let’s do a in between rating reminds me of that Debby Ryan clip where she said she sat down with the head of Disney and said let’s make magic or something like that 😂😂
The rating system is utter bullshit. No consistency. Totally prejudiced
Go look at the history of the SRB system for video games and the TV content guides for TV programs. They have a very similar history.
Great content!!
We still need your take on Dial of Destiny
I mean everyone can pretty much agree that it sucks
@@TobiasCramon12Oof, if that isn't wrong, I don't know what is
@@bruhmaster6950 is there actually people who thought that movie was good?
@@TobiasCramon12 Yeah
@@bruhmaster6950 how
I thought Red Dawn was the first movie to have the PG-13 rating. 🤷🏽♂️🤔
The issue is that it is entirely arbitrary. People that complain about the nanny state giving full authority to an unelected board accountable to no one to decide what is and isn't appropriate for them or their children to watch. And it's also an industry self-regulating, which is never good for anyone. Parenting has become a thing of the past with outraged people complaining about corrupting influences on their children while not taking even the slightest responsibility for their own lack of parenting to their own children. The number of movies that I watched that others would have considered too mature for me at the time is quite numerous, but my mom equipped me with the ability and awareness to understand what is real and what is not, something absent in parents today.
About Time - R
The Dark Knight - PG13
Yeah that makes sense
I think it got more strict. Movies that got PG-13 in the 80's would get that today. They would either get an R or they would have to reshoot some scenes to make it less fun.
Maybe when it comes to nudity, but not violence. Most of the horror films with a PG13 over the last 20 years would’ve gotten an R in the 80s/90s because of violence.
I know some people point to the Janet Jackson wardrobe sabotage incident from the 2004 Super Bowl Half-Time Show as the turning point between when the ratings got more restrictive about nudity, but less restrictive about non-bloody violence. Bloody violence has also gotten more restrictive in PG-13 films than before, but all other forms of violence and gore have gotten more lenience. Cursing, on the other hands, remains about the same as it was when PG-13 was introduced, apart from PG-13 ratings simply scooping up the cursing allowances PG movies used to have.
lol in canada or at least ontario ratings basically max out at 14A. Every R movie I've seen this year was labelled 14A
Man, i literally just finished watching the dark knight 10 minutes ago
The irony of explaining ratings in a video on youtube is not lost on me, sir :)
Interesting that this comes out the same afternoon I see Jules. I enjoyed the movie, but I was surprised it got away with three F-bombs in a PG-13.
I saw Past Lives recently, and that was also a PG-13 film that had three F-bombs in it too.
A while ago, I saw Chaplin with Robert Downey Jr, and it is arguably surprising that the nudity and 2 f-bombs didn't give it an R rating, especially considering it's from a studio known for R-rated films, i.e. Rambo, Total Recall, T2, and Basic Instinct. Didn't mean it was a bad movie, in fact, I find it underrated
Geez i paused the video on the "Text of the Production " moral code and,... yeah, there's some interesting outlines 😅
Before the world wide web, ratings seemed to be a good thing, but today, were anybody over age 5 has a smartphone and access to the internet and all its content, ratings is kind of a joke. It does not make sense anymore.
i think, yes, rules in are in place for a reason, but also, many of those given the power to enforce them, often abuse that power according to their own standards and beliefs or personal gain
The thing about freedom of speech is, You either have it or you don't. There is no middle ground.
Army of Darkness should be PG-13
Every movie should be pg 13 or under
I wouldn't have made the title of the video a question. That makes people want to answer it with out watching. I would have said "The history of the Movie Ratings system"
One thing I do find interesting, how older movies and newer movies have different rules for the same rating How Culture has changed over decades and also the fact that "Ratings" apply to movies and video games but not books or the internet. or if those things DO have ratings, parents ignore them and no one treats them as if they do. We all respect movie ratings and all our children watch R rated movies regardless but we all still have issues with "OMG I can't believe what my child was just exposed to" often with Video games , movies and TV shows but even more often with books and internet and comics .
Too many people look at a rating and get the wrong assumptions . Thing is "Appropriate" is always changing from place to place from era to era
you could easily do a video on all the ways "What we allow" and "Don't allow" has changed over decades. If you need a list of things to look at to farther make that point I can think of a few examples
In Canada, our rating system is a lot more forgiving. A good example is a movie like Superbad, which got a ‘14A’ rating here, as opposed to the American R.
Although, there can have silly instances as something like The Batman got a PG when it clearly should have received a 14A (At least in home video)
I think back in the day it was overly restrictive because cinemas enforced it pretty hard in terms of not selling tickets with certain ratings to teens. In modern times they don't really mean a damned thing since everyone streams anyways but can be a shorthand for parents to know what kind of stuff their kids are watching.
Also I would say that in general Hollywood violence is cartoonish; if you've ever been to war (or lived in war-zones) and seen mangled bodies and what bullets and bombs do... that would be X-rated. That being said nudity is maybe a bridge too far especially when we know - no question! - how damaging pr0n is to people, ESPECIALLY young folks.
And maybe I'm getting old, but I could do with less swearing (you guessed it...) ESPECIALLY from young folks.
Ratings are probably a good thing for public awareness... can you imagine not knowing anything about Team America and thinking it would be fun to take your small child to a puppet movie? Or some teen romance movie where all the characters end up get naked at some point and are having sex in every other scene?
I feel like the movie rating systems are fundamentally flawed, where I come form we have ratings G(everyone, infants included), 7, 12, 16, 18. which are just ages allowed to see a movie. But of course some movies are rated in a way that makes very little sense. For example a 12 movie can contain what I personally would consider graphic violence that can ever cause trauma but there are movies rate 16 which have no violence, sex or even swearing. It feels like sometimes it's roll of dice
It has become far worse because of the studios need to make billion dollar movies. They don't care about the content but only what will make them the most.
7:39 Is it a good think that young impressionable minds are protected from content that could warp their perspective? Probably
NOT!
Ratings aren’t perfect, but they are supposed to prevent censorship. People have no right to be upset if they know what they’re getting into. Why do you think there are often more calls to ban books than movies? It’s because books aren’t rated.
Good point, however, a movie(and video game) has a rating system and the parents STILL blame the industry when the parent buys a movie or video game rated for someone older than their child and their child or some child acts out! When do you as the parent take responsibility for what you buy for your child to consume?! What's the point of the rating system if you as the parent don't adhere to it?! 🤔🤔🤬🤬
Yea but not being let into a movie because your not old enough sucks
@@TobiasCramon12 it MIGHT, but is it something that the child would understand? Because there's SOME kids who are more mature than others! But it's individual to everyone!
@@jescis0 yea ik but i still remember having to wait very long for the movie to come out on dvd because i couldnt watch it in theater. And then having gotten the movie spoiled for me because i couldent watch it right when it came out.
@@TobiasCramon12 yeah that sucks, but even though I'm not a parent myself(I want to be) I don't really like the blame not being on those in charge and I don't know what to do about anyone spoiling a movie… there's ways, but I don't know what would work for you or your situation! Going essentially back to individualism…
The ranking of movies in the USA is absolutely ridiculous.
Extreme censorship of anything lewd but crazy gore and violence?
Aye, no biggie.
Also, ratings keep small and independent filmmakers from getting on the market because getting an official rating in the first place is expensive.
What is the leonardo dicaprio movie at 1:58?
The Aviator. It's a Scorsese film from 2004
@@kikdegraaf6872 Thank you!
Can you do a review of Digimon
Steve Carell really needs to play Will H. Hays in something!
I thought the NC-17 rating for Blonde was absolutely ridiculous. But, overall I feel like ratings in general are less important, and less advertised as they were even just 10 years ago.
I feel like there are movies that are PG that fit more G , like live action Cinderella . There's nothing really wrong with it . Why PG ?
I think 18+ should be changed to 13+
If you're over 8 and have internet access, you've seen way more R rated things than any film director would even need to show.
Ratings are pretty much worthless. Worked in a theater and all the whining about teens and R-rated movies? The only time our theater ever got angry parents knocking on the door was when we DID NOT let the kids in to see a re-screening of The Exorcist! Parents would drop their kids off on a Friday night, even if we were showing an R-rated movie, and no one cared. Nowadays, they want to whine about cigarette smoking being in the movie. Who cares? Honestly, I'd rather let random groups online (who each have their own take on what that group finds objectionable) rate movies and let folks listen to them as they will. Maybe this group is ultra-religious and wants to warn about this that and the other thing, but this group over here doesn't care; let them both have a say instead of defaulting to the MPA tyranny!
more importantly, why do they actuallt have ratings of imdb and all that rotten subjective crap, art is subjective don’t listen to any critic go watch for urself and see if u like or hate it
There's something to be said for IMDB and other critic/audience ratings. I don't want to pay good money to go see a shit movie. If it's universally considered bad by audiences already why would I waste movie ticket money on it? I'll just wait till it's steaming and maybe watch it then. I'm glad for the prior warnings sites like this can offer. They just aren't the end all be all.
"Stifle creative expression"? By who?
The brown bunny
I did a whole college English paper on this, and I genuinely think everything has been getting way too arbitrary and strict since the introduction of PG-13. A lot of people tend to forget that PG was never intended to mean family film or that something was suitable for kids; hell, the very definition of the rating is that some material may NOT be suitable for children. I’ve honestly just come to the conclusion that PG-13 was never necessary to begin with, because I can never think of a movie that genuinely justifies the rating. Parental Guidance is supposed to actually mean Parental Guidance; it is at the parents discretion what they allow their kids to watch, and there was already a rating to establish what films that discretion was most flexible. Ghostbusters is PG, Gremlins is PG, the first two Indiana Jones movies are PG, Spaceballs and Beetle Juice are PG, and you know what, they DESERVE TO BE! We need to stop looking at PG through this modern lens which used to only apply to the ever-dying G rating and make it mean something again. There is no reason why something like Frozen or The Good Dinosaur should be in the same ballpark as Ghostbusters and Raiders of the Lost Ark! Let kids/family movies be G and the parent/adult movies be R, and give PG its grey middle ground again! The MPAA still has no idea what to do with the PG-13 rating, and they never have, so I say do away with it!
That's not an 'ecosystem'
4kids
Having a CLEAR set of rules is of utmost importance for an artist, or any creator. At least the original Hayes code was consistent and clear, unlike its successor... It is an irrefutable fact that a lot of wonderful films were intelligently created to comply with that code, and still transmit what they wanted to say. Compare that with most releases today.
Please stop calling films "content"
Books will have ratings soon if conservatives have anything to say about it. They won't be pleased when the Bible gets its Mature rating though.
with trans story hours becoming so popular i really donn't see the need for this code anymore. not unless it gets equally applied to story hour as well.
The current rating system is certainly flawed. I do think we need A rating system. However, I wouldn't be opposed to the directors themselves giving the rating. As a father of several children, I don't look at the rating to see if it's appropriate for my kids. I have a brain that does that on its own. But it is a good gauge of the level of whatever-ness might be in it. For example, it lets me know that Saving Private Ryan (R) is going to be more intense than Pearl Harbor (PG-13), and significantly so more than Tora! Tora! Tora! (G).
What I dislike in movies is gratuitous *anything* (nudity, gore, swearing, drug use, etc.) to where it feels like a work of f3tishizat!on rather than film. This is subjective, of course, and many of you will disagree with me, which if a-okay. I don't watch movies I don't like, so I don't have many bad examples of this. But, for example, I think the gore in Saving Private Ryan is warranted, as well as the nudity in Schindler's List. It's historically accurate and relevant. And I've watched both movies with my older kids. Whereas, I might not let my older kids watch movies with less gore, or less nudity if I feel like those things are in the film just because the creative person(s) in charge wanted it to be there but without a good justification. And again, it's totally subjective. But those are my 2 cents.