Let’s Talk Censorship

Giving you the know-how and why of children movie ratings

by: Bernice Pierre-Louis

It’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 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

Illustration by Bernice Pierre-Louis

was abolished in favor of the Motion Picture Association (MPA) rating system which wanted to instead have the interest of parents who wanted to choose the content for their children instead of businessmen. Senior writer and filmmaker liaison to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPA) said in response, “ Our system was developed to actually try to get rid of production code to get rid of the Hays Code so that filmmakers can tell the story they want to tell. And then our rating and descriptors will tell parents if it’s appropriate for their kids or not. So again, we’re trying to empower the parents to make the choice”. The right way to censor children’s media has always

been a difficult question to answer for families and film reviewers; more often than not movies marketed for children range from the overly friendly and clean to the more subtlety inappropriate and violent. The MPA has developed a rating system to somewhat accurately place movies in their respective age groups for viewing.

According to the MPA,

Children’s movies usually fall into G or PG. “A rated

PG, which PG, stands for parental guidance. In this category, there might be a little bit of that edge, milder words, maybe some namecalling, jerk, stupid

“We want parents to have the power to choose for their own families”.

A family, close in comfort, sit and watch a movie together. Photgraph by PersonalCreations. idiot, that type of thing. Might be old non realistic violence. You know, this kid friendly, pretty, family focused type entertainment, like your Hallmark movies, those types of things could be PG,” said Downs.

CARA (Certification and ratingadministration) is the team at the MPA directed by Ms. Downs, that collectively decides on and rates movie material for audiences. Composed of workers that are parents themselves, CARA rates about 700-900 movies each year. The organization rates movies based on their collective parental view and always finds to keep the children and filmmakers in mind with their decisions. “We are a group of people, parents, there’s like a dozen of us, right? We stream the movies on these, secure platforms. So it’s not just Netflix, or Apple or whatever it was, we have a designated secure platform, we all screen at the same time and we watch the entire movie without pausing it or rewinding. We just watched from start to finish. And then we’re taking notes the whole time. So every single curse word, I have to write it down and tally and try to write down as much detail as I can about the violence and the sex and everything that’s going on,” said Downs. Despite the organization’s efforts, the ratings themselves leave a lot of gray area for content in children’s movies. Movies in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), for example, are categorized as PG-13, mainly from the violence and effects, but other than that the movies are pretty clean and safe for

most audiences. Then you have movies like Inception where violence and sexual themes remain prevalent throughout the movie with a seemingly convoluted plot to younger audiences to tie it all together. This gray area in the rating of age groups leaves parents unsure of what type of movies are suitable for their children to accompany them to the theaters. Founded in 2003, Common Sense Media is a non-profit organization that delves into that specific gray area of children’s entertainment. Their website holds all the reviews and ratings of children’s media ranging from TV shows, movies, books, and even video games. The rating system evaluates movies with a specific age rating for each movie depending on the contents seen. For instance, a movie like Spider-man: No Way Home is depicted with an “age 11+” rating, and is given a ranking on categories like language, violence, positive role models, and positive messages all in an easy to read and user friendly GUI. Betsy Bozdech, Head of ratings and reviews at Common Sense Media says, “Common Sense Media approaches, read media ratings differently from other organizations, ours is all based on child development criteria, you know, what kids are typically ready for it, which ages, you know, varies obviously, by kid and by family”, said Betsy Bozdech, Betsy Bozdech and her team work primarily in screen media, which delves into TV shows and mainly movies. She has been working in the industry for 16 years and believes in rating movies for children based on their maturity. When asked about the differences linking her rating process and the MPA she said that the matters of rating are entirely different in system. The MPA rates for a general outlook on movies, so a movie rated R or NC-17 would obviously not be made for children whilst movies in the G to PG-13 area may be available to kids provided the context. Common Sense media intends to go deeper with this approach, as a website and organization primarily for kid-friendly and family content. When rating movies for children, it’s good to remember that the reason why they are rating these movies is not for censorship, but to appropriate kids in the correct maturity scale, to not impact their thoughts and actions too early on in their life. Common Sense

Media recognizes this and founds their org over showing kids media until they are ready to view them “ I think there’s censorship, and then there’s, you know, holding off on things when your kids aren’t ready for them, right., I don’t think my eight year “One of our old should watch it[an R rated movie] and I do not want him founding to watch it. So I guess some folks could say that’s a form principles is of censorship if they want to watch it. However, as his sanity, not parent, it is my right and my responsibility to make sure he censorship”. sees things when he’s ready for them,” said Bozdech. So the next time it’s your turn to hold a family movie night, keep in mind that the movies you choose retain to a younger audience and review rating. If you’re unsure on how to pick correctly, the MPA and Common Sense Media have been hard at work since the 1960’s providing regulations and censorship on movies family-friendly to downright mature for the viewing experience of families, so you can enjoy the movies you love watching.