Ratings

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Had a bit of a clash with Chev elsewhere on this issue just recently, and also have some bitching to do about the crap Australia's bringing in now, so yay.

First: Ratings (when enforced) are pointless violations of freedom. I've had the argument of 'they support the parent's ability to make sure that what their child watches etc is suitable' used before and methinks that's crap. The government coming up with a bunch of restrictions upon which *they* have decided is the correct things to watch. Where does parental power come into this?

If they were simply guidelines so that the purchaser could make an informed decision - they'd have my support. *That's* what would help parents if that's what the pro-parent-power people are concerned about. If anything rating take away from the parent's ability to decide what is correct for their children by restricting them even if the parent doesn't wish them to be restricted.

Blanket restrictions based on age are discrimination. When I was 14 I was unable to see Underworld in cimemas because it had the MA15+ rating. A few months later I saw it anyway on DVD, enjoyed it, and was totally unaffected by the content. So why was it illegal for me to watch it in cinema? I don't have a clue: and if someone could enlighten me on the reason for this I'd be grateful. Don't give me any crap about a theoretical 'some people' being immature sociopaths either. Theoretical people are always sociopaths and, being theoretical, I don't see any reason why they should impact on my freedom.

So: I strongly object to age-based rating and restriction of any kind. Age based rating promotes ageism (which IMO is just as bad as any of the other -isms) - it would be fine to have a 'Strong themes' or whatever rating system - but things like 'parental guidance' and 'mature audiences' are condescending.

And now for my own little whinge: Australia's new system for rating music *absolutely sucks*. I walked into a CD store and saw an album I wanted - and in the bottom corner is this ****ing ugly green rectangle with 'G: recommended for general audience' or some such crap on it. What the hell? There is pretty much no better way to ensure that I stop buying music through stores. Let's face it: with CDs you're essentially paying for the packaging - might as well pirate them if the packaging is defaced by government warnings.

Just waiting for the day that the government introduces warnings on books too - yeah, and maybe we can get fat ugly 'General exhibition' labels on works of art as well. Or maybe on a naked sculpture: 'This statue is rated R, for mature audiences'

 

Who says? Are you a Psy D or something?

With underaged people, the basic imperative is proper growth. We can give up on adults and let them waste their lives and screw up their own personality as they see fit, but with children, we have some responsibility to tackle.

It is absolutely unseemly that political concerns should prevail over medical or psychological ones. There is no discrimination in children and teenagers not being legally allowed to watch porn or excessive gore. As I mentioned above, parents are guardians in practically all matters, including civil rights and freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and another. If parents want to give alcohol to their children, not block them from watching porn or gore, teach them to hunt etc etc, they are most often free to.

What ratings prevent is not anyone's freedom but a portion of publishers' income. If ratings are enforced strictly, they aren't free to screw around with San Andreas kind of surprises. This means they can't sell adult games to non-adults, which hurts business. Laws always hurt business, you know. That publishers want regulations removed is a normal thing: all businesses will cry unto heaven for vengeance for all sorts of oppressive restrictions. Importers and exporters will bitch about customs, food industry about hygiene rules and ****ty ingredient quotas, arms industry about the right to bear arms being infringed. And so on and so forth.

I am against cutting things out of movies or games if it can be avoided (of course, so long as no one's being slandered, actors are willing etc), but in turn, information must be provided. Not everyone wants to watch gore or porn or have his children watch it and it's unfair that porn or gore intense games should sit on the same shelf with educational programs and games for kids.

 

You are sadly mistaken if you think minors have the same rights as adults. Just because some minors may be more or less mature than their age is inconsequential. I guarantee once you turn 18 (or whatever the age of majority is) you no longer will care about ratings.

I seem to remember in California some kids were trying to pass a resoultion to allow them to vote (they wanted their vote to count as .5 of a vote). Needless to say it got squashed.

Enjoy your time as a minor, when you reach your majority you gain a lot of privleges and a lot of responsibilities (you may not like it as much as you think you will).

[ October 16, 2005, 15:59: Message edited by: The Great Snook ]

 

Would an alternative solution be another set of ratings, based off various points. For example:

Sexual content:

1: Almost none. Think Bambi or something like that.

Meanwhile,

5: Hardcore Pornography.

For Violence:

1: Negligible. Maybe a little slapstick humour, but nothing malicious or bloody.

5: This would be highly graphic and likely hate filled.

For Language:

1: Almost none. maybe the occasional questionable word (heck, darn, arse, shucks, fudge)

5: Edited for TV would sound like it was in Morse code. Sailors are blushing, and you really have to listen carefully to pick out what they're saying between naughty words.

and Drug Use:

1: Almost none. Maybe a Tylenol for a headache.

5: Heavy and central. Think "Blow" or some other movie where Drugs play a central role and the use is blatant and obvious.

Would this be more useful?

 

and who exactly is ''the government'' which comes up with the rules? I think it has to be some sort of council of psychologists and parents so it would save the average parent the hassle of screening films to see if they won't be too bad for their 10-year olds.
Though I can think of a reason why the restriction might be good (I wouldn't want screaming kids next to me in the cinema) I think the guide system is better. The only problem is that kids/teenagers often want to try everything that is not really meant for them, so the ratings would just make it easier for them to find the really eevil movies/music etc.

 

Well, seeing that I'm presently quite happy with my state of mind and have no psychotic tendancies I'm aware of, it can only be assumed that it a) didn't affect me, or b) affected me for the better, as things are going quite well.

There is something I find extremely funny in a paragraph there - you basically said that parents should have control of their children's freedom - that's not freedom. Limited freedom != freedom, or is freedom something that should only be free to some people? Kind of makes the idea of freedom redundant if freedom isn't free.

I'm not cheering for publisher's income (hell, I'm against capitalism) - I'm cheering for the right to aid the publisher's income if I so want to - and I really don't see minors being as pathetic as you portray them. Just wondering: can you produce some studies or something to back up the medical and psychological evidence thing? I'm not going to trust the overinflated crap of the mainstream media feeds us of 'Ho noes the kids are all flakey psychopaths all ready and lined up to kill us as soon as they watch something violent!'

I do not think that these things should be aimed at kids, but still, I see that kids are humans and should have the same 'inalienable' rights as others (or is freedom and equality just a myth?)

They don't - but they should. Some minors may be more or less mature - so what, some adults are more or elss mature. Children do not fall into decadence because they watch 'mature' rated shows - most of the people my age are proof of this I'd say. South Park didn't turn us into wackoes despite its strong content (I watched it regularly in primary school). I also had watched movies with sex scenes in them while in primary school - so what? I do not consider that then I was especially mature for my age, either.

I can violate the law pretty damn easy now and get t3h horrible privledgez0rs! which you speak of there quite easilly (ie: watching R rated movies, just like I did when I was 14 and watched MA movies) - it's just that it is lame and stupid that there should be ratings which force me to break the law when there is no point.

Gnarff: Yup, that looks like a functionable system of which I could approve.

LeFleur: In Australia it's the Office of Film and Literature Classification which decides the ratings - for all I know it might be made up of psychologists and parents - but I kind of doubt it.

And I don't see why, even if it was a group of such people, that they should have the authority to blanket out everyone with it, as they do not represent everyone (most certainly not the people they're deciding the restrictions for)

Why does it matter if the teenagers/kids try what's not really meant for them? If they can't handle it - they've learnt an important lesson of not to try it next time. And who's to decide what's bad and wrong and evil anyway? It's all subjective.

 

Most children will be wanting to watch children's movies anyway. I doubt a child would pick Visiter Q over Monsterc Inc.

 

I think the guide system Gnarfflinger suggested could work.

On an ideal level I don't like the authorities deciding who can watch what, but I have to say that I saw some pretty nasty movies when I was way too young and they shocked me quite a bit. They didn't change my behaviour or anything, I didn't feel any urge to emulate them, but they left me with a troubled mind and a feeling of being, I don't know, tainted. I wouldn't wish that kind of an experience on children of my own.

 

It does. That's practically verbatim for internet ratings.

 

When I was 15 I thought that way Aikinaro, because I couldn't get into the cinema because the movie was rated for 16.
But I guess we can't let 10 years old kids to watch some kind of movies, in the other hand, nowadays teenagers are more 'grown up' than 5-10 years ago, so a 14 years old kid may had watched any kind of movies / heard any kind of words.

But sometimes politicians don't do the job correctly, because here we have also parental guidance ratings for music and pc - console games, BUT, anybody, including kids, can watch television where you can see the report of a terrorist blowing himself killing people, a report of people (read also Kate Moss) sniffing drugs, a show (read Big Brother and the kind) where people fights 24/7 swearing even more than in a Quentin Tarantino movie, so, where's the rating there?

 

We have a lot of issues here.
First off, children should not have the same rights and privelidges as adults. As we mature, the way the brain and mind work changes drastically for the first ~23 years of life. This influences how we view and weigh fiction, how much influence the events around us have, how much of something we can view/experience any other way without it having major impacts on us. It also changes how we reason, prioritize, and think. There's plenty of evidence all around this and it is commonly accepted. I know it bites for those 3-5% of us who, as children, were actually reasoning and intelligent, but think how the world would be if the other 95-97% of children had been allowed to influence laws.
Also, in America at least, the movie ratings system can be completely bypassed by parental consent. It isn't illegal for a child to view an R rated movie, it's illegal for a child to purchase him/herself a ticket to an R rated movie. If the parents think it's ok, they can buy the ticket and give it to the child, they don't even have to see the movie with the kid.
I agree with all of you that the age system isn't precise enough, and I think Gnarff's system would be better, but there are plenty of websites that rate movies themselves like this, and even give a detailed analysis of what made them give that rating. I don't know what's going on in Australia, but I hope they learn from a good example.

 

I didn't quite get that...

 

@Susipaisti:
Parental controls for most browsers have the exact same scales that Gnarf posted, right down to the number of levels (5 for each).

[ October 18, 2005, 00:48: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

Oh, right. Wasn't that the thing that only checks the textual content and *names* of pictures, but can't understand the pictures themselves? I read somewhere that if you post a picture, no matter how gruesome or pornographic, with an unrelated title and description (or none at all), it goes right through that filter. I understand the hint of sarcasm now...

In any case, that type of categorization system with movies might at least help parents have *some* control over what their toddlers see.

 

@Susipaisti:
Well, I'm talking about the one that requires voluntary submission of ratings from the site itself. Needless to say, there are numerous sites with no ratings.

But I think it could work if the ratings were universal, and that would be a lot more enforceable with video games.

 

Actually, Fel, I had never seen that system. I was just thinking that if the parents could see for themselves the degree of the content, they could decide in a more informed manner. I went on a date with a woman, and we went to a movie rated PG 13, and felt I had to apologize afterwards.

Basically, if they know what they're getting into, then they can make more informed decisions. Even people themselves can make better decisions. Not everyone enjoys hardcore Pornography, or a string of expletives with a few infantile jokes in between, or graphiuc violence or huge drug parites...