Film Ratings Systems
November 3, 2007, 7:43 am
Posted by Cathleen Kaveny
A thread below, on abortion and film, evolved into a question of film ratings by the NCCB. How helpful are they?
Grease, to my surprise, is rated “O”==morally offensive–by the Bishops’ Conference. It’s the same rating as Last Tango in Paris and Saw.
Is a ratings system that lumps all three films together very helpful?
I think you get the some strange bedfellows in the MPAA ratings, too. In a previous discussion, several posters noted that a lot of violence passes in the MPAA PG-13 level in order to bring in the teenage boys.
In the St. Anthony Press, there was a nun who reviews movies. She made good sense and described elements in movies that might make them problematic for kids. I was often more guided by her comments than by eithe the MPAA or NCCB ratings, which both appear at the end of the reviews.
She also did DVD releases and TV shows.
We rarely go to the movies now, though (too expensive), and since we got on Netflix, I can screen stuff ahead of time.
Some recent “O” winners and their MMPA ratings . . .
Bad Santa (R) 2003
Borat (R) 2006
Brokeback Mountain (R) 2005
The 40 Year Old Virgin (R) 2005
Million Dollar Baby (R) 2006
Transamerica (R) 2005
When I did a search for “morally offensive,” most of the films that came up were ones I had never heard of (lots of those) or else they were horror films.
I think Brokeback Mountain was originally rated higher, but then was downgraded. It would be interesting to know if the ratings are done by a committee or an individual, and how the raters are supervised.
Some of these musicals seem to throw in one off-color song for whatever reason. Grease’s was Greased Lightning.
I used to find the NCCB reviews helpful and read them with some regularity. I liked that violence, for example, was taken in context and didn’t necessarily doom a movie. Maybe the reviews & reviewers never changed, but around the time of “Million Dollar Baby”–which had just received a very positive review in America–I remember thinking the NCCB reviews were overly-rigid and patronizing. I remember this, too, with the movie “Closer”.
I see no practical value in ratings such as O, PG-13, A-III (or whatever).
Better to skip the alpha-numerics and describe the stuff: nudity, no violence, profanity, etc. Perhaps preceded by adjectives such as “lots of,” “discrete,” etc.
Joseph, the MPAA ratings do now include the descriptions you note above, including “mild,” “extreme,” etc.
Also, if you check out the NCCB site, each movie comes with a brief review (and boy they hit “Transformers,” a movie I detest for any number of reasons, on the head), which I find helpful.
Re: Kathy’s question about how the review process, all I could find was this statement on the NCCB site: “The Office for Film and Broadcasting is responsible for reviewing and rating theatrical motion pictures, previewing and evaluating television programming as well as providing the Catholic public with information about the role of the entertainment and news media in influencing societal and personal values.”
I did find a link to the Vatican’s top 45 movies, and it’s a great list:
http://www.usccb.org/movies/vaticanfilms.shtml
Yes, the ones I’ve seen are good. But I think the list, overall, goes for pious and moralistic and safe –and of a past era that some people seem to want to recreate.
I like movies with a little bit more edge, and bite. I think Fargo is virtually a perfect movie. I thought American Beauty was powerful too.
And as to ratings, and kids, I suppose the underlying question is what kind of kids does the parent want to raise: kids that are protected from the junk out there, so that it doesn’t poison their minds, or kids that are able to deal with the reality that they face today without being too impressed one way or another by it.–able to find the good, and discard the dross. This question goes back to how you think the church operates in the world.
I am a public school kid. And glad I went to public school. So I tend, myself, to prefer option B. So I think, by the time a kid goes off to college, he or she ought to be able to deal with the uncut version of a lot more movies than the NCCB labels great or not morally offensive.
I like the ratings, especially when it says there is graphic violence, because I can avoid such. In general the Catholic ratings are totally ignored and should be.
Cathleen, I’m an “option B” person as well, and the Vatican’s picks aren’t the only ones I’d show my family. The list may be somewhat goody-goody, but all the movies on it I’ve seen I liked, and i was especailly happy to see “Nosferatu” and “Metropolis” on there.
I would have added “M,” which is still provocative and unsettling. I believe Fritz Lang added the final scene to make the case against capital punishment stronger.
I also thought “Of Human Bondage” (Bette Davis and Leslie Howard) was good. But I’m partial to those late ’20s/early ’30s movies.
I’ll second “Fargo,” (and “Miller’s Crossing”) though I didn’t realize that it was funny at the time because my ear was still trained to that Upper Peninsula lingo, where they talk like Margie and say, “OK, yah sure, real good.”
Some people I live with say I haven’t lost my “Margie accent.”
Yes. And Miller’s Crossing has Gabriel Byrne, the subject of my “If Gabriel Byrne’s in it it can’t be heresy” rule. Yes, I’m talking about Stigmata. Don’t bother going to the NCCB website. Boy, is it ever” O.” But see foregoing rule.
I have found the following site to be useful when evaluating films:
http://decentfilms.com/
I don’t agree with it all the time, but I give props to the guy for trying to evaluate both the moral of the movie, and how well it’s made, and reporting honestly on both.
I can certainly see why adults with children would find the various ratings systems valuable (although I am still sulking about my mother refusing to let me see A Summer Place with Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue back in 1959, when I was 13). But should adults–assuming they have read good reviews and have a clear idea of what they are going to see–feel some kind of obligation to avoid O movies?
Also, I am not sure what to make of the L rating (“L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling”). They don’t shy away from including L-rated movies in their own top-ten lists. For example, Traffic, Crash, and Little Miss Sunshine (hated it!) are in their top-ten lists. Also in the top-ten list for 2000 is Best in Show (“Casual treatment of homosexual couples, some sexual references and fleeting crass language and profanity” hmmmm). How many adults would consider themselves outside the limited group for whom these movies are appropriate?
And for that matter, how many adults would feel they shouldn’t see Brokeback Mountain, Million Dollar Baby, or Grease, all rated O?
And if there are those who feel they ought to avoid Brokeback Mountain and Million Dollar Baby, should they feel obligated to avoid the stories by Annie Proulx and F. X. Toole the movies were based on?
One more question, following from the last paragraph (which I believe someone has raised before in a similar context): Why aren’t books rated? Because they don’t have nudity? (Just kidding . . . sort of.)