What Good Are Ratings, Anyway?

Movies have them.  Video games have them.  TV has them.  The internet has them.  Even the music you buy in the stores have them.  What are they?  They're ratings and warnings.  I am sick and tired of hearing parents complaining about the contents of all of these, and yet they make absolutely no attempt to use the tools made available to them.

Movies have ratings:

• G (General)- Appropriate for all viewers
• PG (Parental Guidance)- Parental Guidance suggested
• PG-13 - Parental Guidance STRONGLY suggested
• R (Restricted)- Restricted to people over 17 without adult supervision
• NC-17 (No Children under 17)- Noboby under the age of 17 admitted.

Yet, we have parents bringing their 4-year-old children to see R-rated movies like "Kill Bill Vol. 2."

Games have ratings:

• EC (Early Childhood)- Appropriate for young children
• E (Everyone)- Appropriate for everyone
• E-10 (Everyone over 10)- Appropriate for children over 10
• T (Teen)- Appropriate for Teen-agers and adults
• M (Mature)- Appropriate only for people over 17
• AO (Adults Only)- Do I need to explain that?

Yet, when I worked in retail, I've seen parents buy M-rated titles like "Doom" or "Quake 2" when I know those children could not be over 10.

Television has ratings:

• TV-Y - Appropriate for young children
• TV-Y7 - Appropriate for children over 7
• TV-E - Appropriate for everyone
• TV-14 - Appropriate only for people over 14.
• TV-MA - Not appropriate for children under 17.

Yet, parents make no attempts to program their V-Chips to block programs that is not age appropriate.  Even my technophobic grandmother can set one of these up.

I have a seperate rant for the internet.  Hopefully, you get the idea for the internet and music.

Why are these same parents complaining about the contents of all these media when they make no attempt to block their children from viewing it?  How can they expect our government to filter out the harmful content when they themselves will not do it?  Why should the rest of us pay for the irresponsibility of these parents?

All of that really makes me angry.    I feel better now.  I warned you it would be long. 

I don't understand why nudity freaks people out more than blood. Nudity doesn't kill people... unless you see an 80-year-old naked and you have a heart attack or something. Anywho, we see open heart surgeries on ER and autopsies on CSI and no one complains. We see a beautiful woman's body, which should be admired as the work of art that it is  and people protest, fine the tv station and one woman filed a lawsuit.

Ultra Christian conservatives don't get it that the female form is a beautiful thing. Even King Solomon figured it out. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:3... King Solomon is my hero  but imagine trying to do a head count ).

Once again Right Wingers and Nazi Republicans claim there's too much profanity in movies. The bible doesn't say "Thou shalt not use the F_ word."

I remember seeing an episode of South Park where Craig, the kid who wears all blue, gets sent to the Couselor's office for flipping people off all the time. Later in another episode we see Craig eating dinner with his family. They all tell each other to shut up and then flip each other off. People complain that kids are getting profanity from Movies and Music. Most likely they learn it from mom and dad.

We don't disagree often, Deadguy, but for once, I have to side somewhat with the Right wingers and Nazi Republicans when it comes to profanity in movies, and entertainment in general. There was a time when the use of certain words was a direct pass to the principal's office if you used them in school, and at best your punishment would be an intimate meeting with that paddle that had holes drilled in it. At worst, you got the paddle, a few days expulsion to think it over, and whatever punishment your parents meted out when you got home...usually that was worse.

I do agree, however, that if a bad example is set at home, whatever happens in movies or whatever media children are exposed to isn't going to matter a whole lot.

The same words used on the air, on TV or radio, could get a station's broadcast license revoked. I think that there is a direct relationship between the acceptance in the use of profanity in society, and the general decline of civility.

But getting back to the topic at large, motion picture ratings are informational guidelines. I don't think that the application of ratings is particularly consistant, but I think people have an obligation to take them into account when deciding what movie they want to see, and what they are going to take children to see. I have zero sympathy for anyone who takes their child to a movie that is clearly inappropriate as defined by the rating, then complains about the content. All they are telling me is that they are illiterate idiots. Alas, there are no shortage of those out there these days.

This society's aversion to sex and obsession with violence is incredible. A wiser man than I once said, "I'd much rather have my children watching two people make love than two people trying to kill each other."

There is even a video game around now in which a player can take the part of Dylan Klieboldt and or Eric Harris, and recreate the Columbine massacre. The point of the game is to kill as many fellow students as possible with guns and bombs. As a resident of the Denver metro area, I can't even express how appalled and offended I am by that. Perhaps it can be granted that in this society, the people who made that game had every right to do it. But that doesn't make it right to do so. And when we are desensitized to the point where we can turn horrifying mass murders into a form of interactive entertainment, its little wonder that political leaders with repugnant agendas can easily manipulate the public conscious into permitting attacks on nations that have never done us any harm.