I've Had It With the MF'in MPAA and Their MF'in Hypocrisy!!

Posted Nov 3rd 2009 3:03PM by Scott Weinberg
Filed under: Fan Rant

Let's say you're watching a horror film in which six or eight people get skewered in relatively explicit fashion. By all accounts, that film should be Rated R: Adults only, unless a parent decides different. That's an example of how a ratings board does good work: They see that a flick called "Saw" has "graphic, extreme violence" and they decide that their 12-year-old can live without that sort of stuff for a few more years. And obviously the same holds true for rampant profanity, nudity, sexual situations, or drug abuse. Some stuff simply isn't meant for kids, period.

So obviously I have no problem with a "ratings board," in theory, but in practice? Sheesh. The one we currently have (the MPAA) is so broken, so twisted, and so confused that I'd like to call for a complete do-over. Fire the whole staff, raze the whole damn building if you have to, and start over from scratch. Because I say the MPAA is either A) monumentally clueless, B) stunningly corrupt, or C) a combination of both. Hell, this is a group that created an "adults only" rating, and then did all it could to make it into the new "porno" label. I can hear your eye-rollings already, and I can't really blame you: Serious film fans have been complaining about the MPAA's blatant hypocrisy for years now, and if you thought that Kirby Dick's ballsy documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated was going to usher in a new era for the MPAA ... sorry to say you were dead wrong.

Anyone out there see Paranormal Activity? Why was that rated R? For a few random F-bombs. That's the only reason the MPAA gave ... despite the fact that numerous PG-13 films also have F-bombs. Hell, the whole freakin' Austin Powers trilogy is nothing but one long d!ck joke, but since PG-13 flicks make (a lot) more money than R-rated ones, the studios get all sorts of breaks when it comes to the ratings board. (Yes, Paranormal is owned by one of those big studios, so my point is sort of fuzzy there, but that's what happens when I type angry.)

By now you've probably seen a trailer or clip for Roland Emmerich's upcoming 2012, a promo piece that doesn't even come close to offering a clue to the film's PLOT, but boy does it jam a distressing amount of carnage into two minutes. Have a look right here:



Wow, look how awesome that is! Thousands of little people being squished, squashed, and pitched into the underground inferno of San Andreas! That looks FUN! I can't wait to show it to my kids!

Or they can just go see it themselves, because ... it's PG-13.

Now, I'm obviously no prude when it comes to cinematic violence. If I had a son, I'd happily raise him on a steady diet of age-appropriate horror and action films -- because I freaking loved that stuff when I was growing up. Nor do I have a problem with "disaster carnage," as I loved the insipid Irwin Allen flicks when I was younger. It's not the content I have a problem with at all.

The problem I have is with a self-appointed censorship board that tells the entire country that profanity is evil, that a naked breast is vulgar, and that human sexuality is more nefarious than rampant violence. My problem is with a handful of shameless rubber-stampers who kowtow to whatever studio leans on them when their next potential blockbuster shows up. I'm sick of base, leering violence being perfectly OK with the ratings board, dammit, and it's high-time we hold them accountable for their b.s.

From their patently unfair game that bends over for the studios while holding the "indie" distributors to a much higher standard to their clear and clueless "free pass" they give to bloodless carnage, the whole group just stinks to high heaven. If the studios are truly interested in a ratings system that actually SERVES their customers, then I say the MPAA has to be rethought, revamped, or (best of all) replaced entirely -- by a group of people who actually care about serving the moviegoers.



Tags: hypocrisy, mpaa

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