Movies with Smokers = R
Sun May 13, 2007 at 01:22:33 PM PDT
The MPAA film rating system was first instituted in 1968 (the year of my birth) and has gone through about as many changes as I have. The mystery-shrouded MPAA's Classification and Rating Administration recently announced the newest rating criteria: flagrant depictions of smoking will earn a film an R rating.
(The announcement) outlined three paramount factors as reviewers consider the impact of smoking in films: Is smoking pervasive in the movie? Is it glamorized? Is there a historical reason or other factors that make inclusion of smoking relevant?
In an interview yesterday, Joan Graves, chairwoman of the association's ratings board, described the new ratings system as "an art, not a science. We don't have rules like if you see incidences of smoking three times it's this rating, if you see incidences of smoking four times it's this rating."
To illustrate the complexity of their task, Graves pointed to the 2005 drama "Good Night, and Good Luck," the cinematic portrayal of the battle between the chain-smoking Edward R. Murrow and red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Even though smoke clouded nearly every frame of the film, because it reflected a period of rampant smoking, it still would have kept its PG rating under the new system -- but with a notation that it included heavy smoking.
A few factors greased the slides for this move. Former father of the movie-rating system Jack Valenti died. His successor Dan Glickman does not have the same reluctance to telling filmakers how and when to use images of smoking. This time around, they brought out the big guns: the dean of the Harvard School of Public Health and other prestigious researchers testified to Hollywood heads in February about the impact that glamorized images of smoking in films has on teenagers' behavior.
"Any portrayal of tobacco in a glamorous or a positive way or as an adult-thing-to-do puts adolescents at much greater risk of using tobacco," said Dr. Matthew McKenna, director of the Office on Smoking and Health at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who said that teens who are repeatedly exposed to smoking in movies are 1 1/2 to 2 times more likely to start the habit than teens who see less movie smoking.
The new criteria is curious to me; on the one hand, the research regarding teens and smoking is compelling. However, with other ratings criteria--specifically sex and violence--chances are, the movies are where most teens will be exposed to that kind of imagery. To be more explicit, a teen walking down the street on a typical day doesn't see people screwing and heads getting chopped off. But a teen will see plenty of folks taking smoke breaks. I guess with smoking, the distinction is between exposure and glamorized exposure.
The documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated caused quite a stir by yanking the veil from the group that makes these rating decisions. The committee is comprised of movie theater chain and studio executives, plus a couple of clergy. They "receive no training and are deliberately chosen because of their lack of expertise in media literacy or child development."
The wiki entry on the MPAA ratings system is engrossing. Some highlights, paraphrased:
• Language: Waiting for Guffman is rated R because a man auditioning for a role uses "fuck" while quoting Raging Bull (the only time it is spoken in the movie).
• Drugs: A well known example of an otherwise "PG movie" getting a PG-13 for a drug reference is Whale Rider. The film received a PG-13 because of a scene where the drug paraphernalia was briefly visible.
• Nudity: If a film contains male rear nudity, it is more likely to be given a lower rating than if the nudity were female. Male nudity is generally regarded as ribald (i.e. mooning) or natural, whereas female nudity is generally regarded as sexual. However when it comes to frontal nudity the MPAA tends to be more lenient on female frontal nudity (A film with female frontal nudity can still earn a R rating while a film featuring male frontal nudity can still face the possibility of receiving a NC-17 rating.)
• Violence: Films that have legitimate historical or educational value are often granted leniency. Some have argued that the level of violence in Saving Private Ryan merited an NC-17, but that the film was given leniency because it was a historical war movie. This argument also came up when The Passion of the Christ was released without cuts, with an R-rating. Violence which includes bloodshed will usually receive an R rating, while bloodless violence will be rated PG-13.
Some critics of the MPAA ratings argue that the standards are ideologically biased in favor of socially conservative values: coming down harsher on sexual scenes and four-letter words while being relatively slack about violence. I would say that I fall squarely into this camp. I'm more comfortable with Jude seeing nudity or hearing obscene language than I am with him watching violent scenes. I sympathize with the critics who point out that:
...allowing violence in PG-13 movies as long as there is no blood is a form of conditioning children to accept violence as consequence-free. Many filmmakers have called this obscene and said that, if anything, children should be allowed to see violence only if the consequences are shown as well, to distinguish between violence inflicted on a person and violence inflicted in a cartoon.
In the end, I think movie ratings are helpful to parents. The MPAA insists that they are only responding to the mores of our culture, not prescribing them. I just wish the rating systems reflected my value system more.
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