When I was a student at Sydney University in 1976/77 I heard over the air waves for the very first time the F word. It was broadcast on the student-run low-powered experimental University radio station. And its broadcast was somewhat controversial. If I switch on the TV this evening after about 9:30pm, there’s a good chance I’ll see a movie very well studded with the F word, and plenty of others. And that’s free-to-air broadcast TV.
In Australia the classic 1966 movie The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is rated R, which means the DVD can’t be sold to anyone under the age of 18. Many other movies rated R in the 1960s and early 70s have since been re-rated as M (a suggestion that it’s not suitable for under-15s). No doubt GBU would re-rated downwards if resubmitted (I’d guess to M, like so many others).
What these things reflect is the changing (some would say loosening) of that nebulous concept of ‘community standards’.
Now, I see, there is a potentially useful alternative provided by a commercial body called ‘PSVratings’ (presumably based in the US). This Web-based system (~$US20 per year) eschews the twin defects of the major movie ratings systems in the West: those changing standards, and the wobbly value judgements inherent in tying the suitability of programming to different ages. Take Australia’s M rating (probably the closest US version is PG-13) as an example. Why is a particular movie rated M? Is it because it has sex? Violence? Language? ‘Adult concepts’ (whatever they are)? I might not mind my 12 year old seeing a bit of biffo, but recoil at the thought of them seeing casual sex on-screen, even if it is merely suggested rather than shown. Or I might hate depictions of violence and not mind the sex. Or I might want my teens to aspire to conversation with their peers devoid of swearing. Recent movies carry a line or two of text on their ratings as well, clarifying matters somewhat (eg: ‘Low Level Course Language’), but this does little to deal with the changing of standards over time, and involves an inspection of the cover of, say, the DVD. It does not lend itself to inclusion in a database.
PSVratings deals with these issues rather nicely. It uses three scales rather than one: profanity, sex and violence (now you know where the name comes from). It has four colour codes for each scale, with a clear explanation of each on the Web site. So it puts clear objective information into the viewer’s hands.
Will this work? PSVratings makes its money by charging consumers, so there’s always a worry that there’ll be insufficient interest to maintain it. What would be nice is if the film distributors internationally adopted it, at some very small fee (one cent per title per disc, or some fixed amount for rating the movie), and the ratings were then made available to customers for free.
Is it perfect? No, because it is entirely secular. It deals with sex, violence, language and drugs, but not with moral or spiritual issues. Now this last could be a controversial issue, but the fact is that many parents are as concerned with these as they are with the others. Consider religious sensibilities. Even though politically incorrect, some Christians and Muslims object to their children seeing homosexual kissing in PG (suitable for 12 years and over) movies. Others may object to otherwise fine family movies, except that the couples are not married.
These things don’t particularly worry me, but given the huge number of religious people in the world, perhaps a fourth scale would be warranted. Once that could even have a different judging panel constituted by various clergy-people.
No system of rating is perfect, even with my suggested inclusion. But without a doubt an objective system like PSVratings is markedly better than the vague systems generally used.
UPDATE (Wednesday, 18 February 2004, 8:07 am): I am advised by the CEO that the correct name for this organisation is ‘PSVratings (as opposed to PSV Ratings or PSV ratings)’. I have changed the references in this posting appropriately.