Movie Ratings

General Questions
#1

The Disney classic movies “Snow White” & “Pinnochio” had some pretty violent scenes. (IIRC, “Snow White” was banned in the UK because of the witch’s death scene.) Yet they were considered children’s movies.

Many years later, the MPAA rating system is used. Strangely, the “Planet of the Apes” movies are all rated “G” except “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes” (PG). I thought these would be at least PG’s (PG-13 if it was available back then). There was plenty of shooting, a little nudity, cursing, slinky outfits (Nova - what a babe!), vivisection, death by impaling, death by atomic bomb, death by “apehunt”, baby ape’s death by mother’s own hand, etc.

Disney’s first PG movie was “The Black Hole”. Deservedly so, it’s subject matter was rather dark and there was at least one graphic death scene (death by Roto-Rooter). Fifteen years later, “Blank Check” also received a PG rating, but for what? It seemed as innocuous as most of Disney’s fare.

Is there just a massive inconsistency to movie ratings? Does the MPAA publish a list of reasons why a movie gets a particular rating? Is the PG rating (not PG-13) on the way out, as G movies now are on the level of Teletubbies, R movies are most adult movies, and most of the rest are given PG-13?

#2

It’s my understanding that a panel of people watches the movie and then votes on its rating. So essentially, the rating is a majority-rules subjective judgement. IOW, the rating depends on the personal tastes of the panel members, and probably on the mood of the members on the day they watched the movie. So, for example, Blank Check may have been judged harshly because some of the panel people were in a bad mood on the day they watched it.

“I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms.” -The Secret of Monkey Island

#3

Well I can’t speak to your diatribe about how you think “Planet of the Apes” movie are equivalent to ‘Scarface’ but I can tell you that this topic of how movies are rated came up on KFI talk radio a few weeks back.

They don’t publish any rules on how the movies are rated, but they did mention what makes a movie PG-13 vs. R in terms of nudity. It has to do with the total length of time the scene is, combined with whether it is sexual in nature. In other words, a European film with a scene on a topless beach = PG-13, Someone peeping through a hole at girls in the shower room is easily an R rating.

The REAL problem is the distinction between R and NC-17. The subject came up on talk radio because ‘American Pie’ had to cut something like one to two second of a guy fucking an apple pie to get the rating down to an R which many felt was so stupidly arbitrary, they did need to publish some rules. The issue, of course, is that many movie theaters will not show an NC-17 movie.

Basically, the MPAA rates the movie and the panel is made up of some 12-15 people from different walks of life who do this as a full time job, but are supposedly sworn to secrecy so they are not influenced by Hollywood money. I believe if you don’t like the rating they give you can appeal it, but you usually have to remove something first, which I believe they tell you what it is.

From what I understand, movie producers of R films often ‘push the envelope’ by leaving in extra violent scenes, just so they can cut them out later as a token compromise and still get quite a bit of extra gore in.

#4

The MPAA page (www.mpaa.org) has some good info.

Here’s a page on how ratings are decided: http://www.mpaa.org/movieratings/about/content3.htm#5

Back off, man. I’m a scientist.

#5

You ought to know that the Province of Quebec has its own Régie of film rating. What they do is replace the weirdo MPAA ratings with ones which reflect Quebec culture and mores a bit more: i.e. sex is ok, violence less so.

Also, if a film is going to stay in theatres longer than a week, it must have a French version. This is good because I can conduct comparative translation studies. (All of the songs in the South Park movie were translated into fluent French! Can you believe it? Fabulous!)

I like living in Quebec.

#6

Quote,

“‘American Pie’ had to cut something like one to two second of a guy fucking an apple pie”

Please tell me that there is no such scene in said film. pretty please

#7

matt_mcl: Also, if a film is going to stay in theatres longer than a week, it must have a French version. This is good because I can conduct comparative translation studies. (All of the songs in the South Park movie were translated into fluent French! Can you believe it? Fabulous!)

It’s hard to imagine the South Park boys speaking French. That by itself would be hilarious to me.

I saw Phenonemon in Montreal, but I had to make sure we were going into the right theatre. The French spelling was almost the same. :slight_smile:

#8

“Snow White” wasn’t banned. It got a “U” (“Universal”) rating in the UK.

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