How many times have your parents kept you from seeing a movie because of its rating? Well, you can thank the MPAA for that. The Motion Picture Association of America is the organization which rates movies. It's one thing for your parents to monitor what you watch, but the MPAA is a secret group of people. You don't know who they are. How can they have any idea what sort of films are appropriate for you? The MPAA is untrustworthy, unnecessary, and should be eliminated.
As many of you already know, there is a rating scale for movies. The mildest is G, for general audiences. The rest are as follows: PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17. Mpaa.org states that PG may require parental guidance, because of “mature themes”. PG-13 allows the use of only one expletive and any more than one results in an R rating. R-rated movies are restricted to people of 17 years of age and up, unless an adult is present. The website says that “Generally, it is not appropriate for parents to bring their young children with them to R-rated motion pictures”. How exactly do they determine what is 'appropriate' for you? If a movie receives an NC-17 rating, movie theaters will not allow anyone under 18 to see it, even with an adult. What makes NC-17 so terrible? The MPAA says that NC-17 rated films contain “element[s] that most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children”. It also says that such a rating “should not be construed as a negative judgment in any sense”. I think that if your parents read that NC-17 was 'off-limits' to children,
…show more content…
Neither can anyone else. They supposedly represent American parents, but how can we know if they really do? They could be anyone. In his movie, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, director Kirby Dick tries to find out what the MPAA is hiding. Here are a few reports from people who Dick interviewed for his