Let’s Talk Censorship Giving you the know-how and why of children movie ratings
Illustration by Bernice Pierre-Louis by: Bernice Pierre-Louis
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t’s a saturday evening and you want to watch a movie with your whole family, so you search for a movie that interests you, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Aside from a little violence and gore that you heard from a friend, you believe the movie is suitable for your parents and 4 yearold sibling to watch. You tune in and in about 2 hours, your sibling is horrified and wailing over the gore and brutal violence, while your parents are disturbed with the amount of graphic scenes and profanity in witness to your sibling. You wonder if this movie was the best choice for tonight’s family movie Film Through Time | 14
night and how you would have figured out which movies are really suitable for a 4 year-old. The MPAA and other mainstream movie rating organizations have come a long way in viewer censorship when regarding film. From the Hays code to the Official MPAA rating to websites designed primarily for reviewing children’s media, rating movies have evolved with the intent in mind to think of the families providing appropriate content for their families and to see to what extent we should “think of the children”. In the early days of film, movies would be rated in the
mind of a business marketing strategy. For the supreme court and Hollywood execs, movies weren’t seen as a basis for art and creativity, but as a means to profit and a way to elevate consumerism. This meant that filmmakers had to follow a strict code of conduct to abide by these execs, and this is where the Hays code was founded. In 1930, the Hays Code was established as a state of rules censoring anything that was seen as inappropriate and vile. In short, the Hays Code was a first in censoring media for families and children with clean language and little to no kissing or signs of affection between characters. Eventually the Hays Code
