An Investigation Into the Current Movie Rating System in America and How It Limits Artistic Freedom

This paper is written in relation to the conflict of interest between the studios and the government, the public perception of the movie industry, and the Hollywood work force.
Beginning with the Production Code of 1930 and moving through the instatement of the rating system in 1968, the labor strikes of the nineteen forties and the impact that McCarthy and the Hollywood Blacklist had on the industry, each significant event is evaluated and put into perspective in terms of censorship, finance, or political power. 
The nature of the censorship is also discussed, particularly in relation to the NC-17 rating and how it impedes the filmmaker’s ability to market and distribute a given film.

What Are Movie Ratings and Why Are They Important?

Months before its release into theaters, the most highly anticipated summer thriller of 1992 was already gathering steam. Basic Instinct -starring the up-and-coming beauty of the silver screen, Sharon Stone, along side an all-time box office favorite, Michael Douglas- was a sure-to-be hit. In fact, the film had already accosted so much attention from Hollywood reporters and movie critics that it was dubbed “the steamiest movie of the year” and “a guaranteed blockbuster,” before it had even been submitted for rating.

Two years earlier in June of 1990, another film was scheduled for release later that fall. Although met with less fanfare and anticipation, Universal Studios and director Philip Kaufman had high hopes for their film adaptation of excerpts from the first volume of Anaïs Nin's personal diary. Henry and June was to be a drama that, among other things, through explicit, hetero- and homosexual content, would challenge both the artistic and social limits of the media of film. Both of these movies would however, when all was said and done, have a dark shadow cast over them and their makers.

Henry and June would eventually become the first film ever to receive the infamous NC-17 (No Children under Seventeen) rating from the Codes and Rating Association (CARA), a sub-board of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Basic Instinct was also initially rated NC-17.

There was however, one problem: only roughly half of the movie theatres in the country would even consider carrying a film garnishing such a classification. Paul Verhoeven, director of Basic Instinct, was under contract with TriStar entertainment to produce an R rated film and the potential loss of as many as nine hundred theater bookings as a result of not achieving such would be a gargantuan price to pay for a film with an estimated forty-nine-million-dollar production cost .

Kaufman, whose film's budget was nowhere near that of Verhoeven's chose not to edit and made virtually all of the movie's insignificant profit overseas.

The MPAA then, is an organization that “rates” the movies that Americans watch. That organization's role however entails more than simply stamping an arbitrary combination of letters and numbers on the movies that we as consumers are allowed to view. The MPAA, as one of the most powerful content monitoring organizations in the world, has the daunting responsibility of telling the “average American parent” what is and is not age appropriate for their child. Therefore the people who exert power over and within this system find themselves in a position of incredible influence on our culture in that they determine what is acceptable viewing for the public eye. The way in which the system began - and evolved into what we currently use - is in large part a story of power and persuasion, in which most, if not all, of the participants push an agenda motivated by personal benefit. This raises the question of how our rights as individuals have changed as a result of these political dealings and perhaps more pertinently how have the artist's rights changed when it comes to freedom of expression?

The following will discuss the multifaceted history of the MPAA by explaining how such an organization came to power, then examine the stunning political influence such an organization exerts and finally interpret the repercussions of said power on society. The greater conflict in all of this is the MPAA's historical confrontation with the American viewers, the US government and the labor force and finally with the artists themselves.

Background: The Rise of a New and Modern System

The first component in understanding how the MPAA functions as a cultural barometer is understanding how and why this system came to fruition. Much like many great American stories, this one begins with none other than a mailman: the Postmaster General, William H. Hays.

In the early nineteen hundreds, beginning with silent film and continuing on into the era of movies with sound, was an apparent trend of increasingly risqué content within the movies. Popular culture in the beginning of the century had not yet seen things like bad language in fiction, or even women in clothing displaying their knees and there was still relatively universal conformity to the socially appropriate consideration of topics in art and quotidian life alike. The public perception that the studios were becoming careless and irresponsible, along with growing outrage at Hollywood's audacity concerning the release of generally unchristian content, prompted the heads of the studios to form the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) and search for a known figure who exuded sober responsibility and commanded public respect to head up the operation. In 1922 they selected Hays who had previously served, as the chairman of the Republican National Committee, and was largely supported by powerful figures in Washington.