A film being rated a certain way that it is, is a concept that most people just look over and simply use as quick way to find out the mood of a movie. It’s extremely important and pivotal in the movie industry, but is it more than just a letter?

There is so many positives to having a movie being rated. Movie ratings are very important to parent’s. Everyone wants there kid to be so innocent and every parent tries to hold their kid back from seeing certain parts of life for as long as they can until they start getting older and are more mature for that content. For that reason, parent’s love ratings. It gives them information about what is in the movie and if it is appropriate enough for the whole family to watch. Nothing is more embarassing than an awkward scene coming up in front of the whole family, especially as a parent (I can assume). The whole concept of ratings was created in 1968 with a simple letter format to indicate the rating of the movie. It went G,M,X (R). PG replaced M later on and PG-13 was created in 1984.

This week, we were assigned to watch “This Film is Not Yet Rated”. It’s a documentary that was made in 2006, basically going over America’s rating system and the effect it has on the American culture. Most of the attention is pointed towards Hollywood films and independent films. They go more in depth with how they think movies should be rated. Points were made about an assortment sexual scenes, scenes involving drugs, swearing, and nudity. I really enjoyed watching this film because it really opens your eyes to whats actually behind the ratings of movies. This film was directed by Kirby Dick and produced by Eddie Schmidt. The MPAA were a big factor in this film, The MPAA is the highest order of people to give a movie a rating, they give the final word. The MPAA gave this film a NC-17 because of the slight sexual content. 

The second film we were assigned to watch was “A Decade Under the Influence” which was an American Documentary Film and is all about the “turning point” in American movies during the 1970’s. It was directed by Ted Demme and was actually his last film that he directed before he died in 2002. I liked this film as well, It’s interesting hearing about what made the cinema world blow up and how did it happen. Everything they thought would change the world is blown out of the water now by newer and more quality technology. If I had to pick between the two films thenI would definitely choose “This Film is Not Yet Rated” because I could relate to that more and it was more about modern cinema, but I enjoyed learning about the past as well.

The Cinema industry will always be in our life, but so will ratings. Overall, I think ratings on movies are a very helpful and useful tool for so many people when researching movies.