Watching
This Film Is Not Yet Rated--a film complaining about the power wielded by the MPAA's anonymous rating-council (the supposéd "parents of children between 5 and 17" who collectively decide upon an American movie's 'G,' 'PG,' 'PG-13,' 'R' or 'NC-17')--and the complaint that stood out is that they
are 'anonymous'—unlike any other parental-rating council in the world.
My defense of that anonymity is "peer-pressure," like I mentioned in the title. It's not the raters' job to think about whether anyone would be "offended" about a movie, but rather "whether the typical American parent ought to allow his/her children to see the movie."
Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin
Of course, the result is rather different ... the raters are like popular search-engines; they aren't there to decide what gets seen and what does not, but they end up deciding indirectly.
So the anonymity is necessary to keeping the ratings purely-parental. The search-engines don't have the anonymity, so any anti-social scumbag can get advertised on the same page that lists "Care Bears," "Candy Land" and "Jesus" if he has enough money!
If the MPAA didn't give the raters anonymity, then rich movie-makers would know exactly what to do to feed children all kinds of unfiltered garbage!
But What Is Garbage?
The film also mentioned that the way the ratings end up in America seems to be heavy ratings on sex with lighter ratings on violence, where it seems the other way-around in Europe (with heavy ratings on violence, light ratings on sex).
Kevin Smith (comedy director, and I think he's Silent Bob of
Jay and Silent Bob) mentioned that he thought films that show blood in their violent scenes should be seen by children before films that show no blood in cuts and gunshot-wounds, because the carnage make the violence unwanted.
But We Need to Be Rid of Them Both!
Why? Because hypnosis is very simple ... exposure of the senses to an event--again-and-again--exposes your subconscious to the "occurence" of that event. Whether you realize it and tell yourself again-and-again everytime that the event is 'not good,' it still 'occurs' and does not stop the world-at-large from spinning.
(Oh, it stops the world for the person who
is wronged and--eventually--for the person who
does the wronging; but your subconscious feels it's "above" all that and doesn't really pay much attention to the 'not good!' with which your conscience tries to 'temper' it.)
Your subconscious sees the bad event being perpetrated for the advancement of an individual (who does it on purpose), and doesn't stop you from doing that same bad event
unless your conscience is experienced enough to stop it.
And There Goes the Sex!
That's why the raters focus more-heavily on sex; because
no one wants to hurt anyone, but
sex is a) immediately-enjoyable for all parties involved, yet b) is several-times as dangerous, because its possible aftereffects don't just kill you. They also follow you the rest of your life!
See, people go see movies to get away from present reality. If we allow children to believe that the 'reality' in movies is just as real as
real reality, then their moral structure is damaged beyond our repair!
Why I Only Gave the Film Two (out of Five) Stars
This Film Is Not Yet Rated would not have sold me more popcorn. That is to say, I didn't care enough to see how it ended. That's partly because it was on so late; after an hour of it, it was time to mute the TV ... apparently the music had kept me watching beforehand. It just seemed like a bunch of whiny mud-slinging by film-makers who couldn't get noticed without unacceptable content.
Originally posted on:
The Enlightened Xombee