Noecker 1

Drexel Noecker

Dr. Patty Williamson

Honors 202WI

3 November 2018

Leave it to the People

Since the film industry emerged in America beginning in the 1890’s numerous

regulations have been implemented along with the constant criticism from some realm of society.

The first major form of censorship was initiated in 1930 when a Jesuit priest, Will Hays, wrote

the Production Code as a member of the MPPDA (Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of

America) which was not applied until four years later (“The Hayes Code”, 2018). The

Production Code hindered film producer’s artistic capacity along with the depiction of reality.

Based off of many religious beliefs, the production code was very controversial due to the wide

variety of morals and religion in the United States. The Production Code was active until 1968

which is when the next drastic change affected the American film industry ("A Timeline of the

Pre-Code Hollywood Era”, 2018). This is when the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of

America) created a censorship scale which measures the appropriateness of a film and gives a

rating determining how old one must be to watch the film. This regulation system has been

altered and adjusted since its creation, yet still is actively monitoring our film industry. This

current rating board for the MPAA is made up of what original MPAA president, Jack Valenti

considered “average American parents” (Merrill, 2018). To this day a handful of randomly

chosen parents from diverse backgrounds in the United States make the initial rating decision.

There are positive and negative factors resulting from each previous rating system, although

there has always been controversy over film regulation.

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To propose a regulation system for the entire film industry which satisfies every

individual and diverse concern would be impossible. During the Production Code era, the

citizens were divided, either supporting the code or despising it. Much of this disagreement

involved religion and morals which vary from person to person. Since it is impossible to create a

system to fit everyone’s morals, it would make more sense to allow people to apply their own

morals and religion when deciding what movie to watch. My proposal for creating a new film

regulation system would be similar to the one in place now, except there would only be two

rating categories. One rating would be for children 17 and younger, the other for adults 18 and

older. This system would be privately run and have a board full of 200 randomly chosen parents

in our country, similar to the current MPAA system, except not implying each parent is

“average” as well as receiving a larger variety of opinions. The rating system would be more

strict in regards to content for the films rated for 17 and younger. This would force parents to be

held responsible for what their kids watch, although with advancing technology, regulation can

be easier achieved by prepaying for tickets online or using tickets available on mobile devices.

An addition implementation to my system for regulating film would be introducing a

nationwide law enforced by the national government. The law would prohibit the sales of movie

tickets to individuals under 18. Preventing minors from buying tickets themselves would shift

the responsibility to the parents, choosing which movies they will allow their children to see.

Tickets are becoming more and more commonly sold online which would allow a parent to buy

tickets for their children which can be available to use on mobile devices allowing children to

watch the movies without their parents having to come with them to physically buy the tickets.

This implementation will prevent adults from complaining about film content, because they have

to purchase tickets for their children, choosing which films they can attend.
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If there were only two different ratings for films, when a producer is creating a movie

meant for adults, they would have artistic freedom due to not worrying about losing income from

younger audiences. The first amendment guarantees freedom of expression and speech which

allows anyone to make any movie they wish. My proposal would obviously allow producers to

put any level of inappropriate behavior or actions in the movies, as long as only adults can view

the films. The movies which are rated for 17 year olds and younger would be more strictly

regulated since it would be up to parents to decide which films their children can view. Content

including swearing, LGBTQ, references towards sex, war, half nudity, and illegal activities

would be allowed to a certain extent, but they would be more strictly regulated than currently.

This would hopefully make up for irresponsible parenting, so that children who are allowed to go

see any movie would not be exposed to content too mature. Parents can easily hold

responsibility today since movie tickets can be purchased online and transferred to a mobile

device.

The rating system will be overlooked but not run by the government, it would act as an

organization similar to the MPAA. The organization should contain a president, multiple

chairmen, and a rotating group of 200 parents randomly selected from around the entire country.

Within the organization, the chairs would be responsible for randomly selecting the committee of

200 parents. I would be looking to portray ratings similar to the MPAA, “ratings designed to

reflect how the majority of American parents would rate a film” (Wilmoth, pg. 1, 2018). Staying

consistent with the last few adjustments to film regulation, my proposal would continue to allow

the film industry to regulate itself without direct government interference. My proposal will

remove the majority of controversy from the film regulation because it will leave parents
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completely responsible for what they allow their children to watch, instead of place blame on an

organization for giving the wrong rating.

Implementing this new system would regulate certain content more strictly than the

current regulations. The system would not allow as much violence to be portrayed in movies for

young adults, which has been proven to provoke violence in teens (Huesmann, Rowell, Miller,

1994). If violence was monitored more strictly, it could help reduce the teen homicidal statistics

which have recently been climbing (Violence in Media and Entertainment, 2016). This

information is, “based on a body of literature that includes more than 2,000 scientific papers,

studies, and reviews demonstrating the various effects that exposure to media violence can have

on children and adolescents” (Violence in Media and Entertainment, pg. 1, 2016). Violence has

drastically increased over the last decade, including a significantly higher amount of public

shootings which take the lives of hundreds on innocent victims, totaling 1,875 deaths since 2013

(Morris & Sam, 2017). These tragic events cannot strictly be blamed nor proven to be a result of

film content, although there is a mass amount of evidence and research pointing towards film

content being a major culprit.

Under my system, sexual content would be regulated considerably more than it is under

the current MPAA system. This is fueled by the drastically increasing amount of sexually

transmitted diseases, “more than two million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis were

reported in the United States in 2016, the highest number ever” (“CDC Newsroom”, pg. 1,

2017). This epidemic is constantly getting worse as well as much more serious. “Although sex

is frequently portrayed on television, protective behavior is rarely shown and references to

adverse consequences are rare; casual unprotected intercourse is presented as the norm” (NAP,

pg. 93, 1997). When considering sexual content allowed in the 17 and younger rating category,
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the group of parents reviewing the films would allow references and partial displays of safe sex,

potentially aiding the slow of the sexually transmitted disease epidemic. Open sex including

unsafe, premature, and illegal sex would definitely be placed in the category for adults only.

Another downside to the current portrayal of sex in film is the negative perspective towards

women carried in today’s society, “We tend to draw our ideas about sex from the media, where a

clear sexual double standard exists. The media’s portrayal of women’s sexualities is destructive”

(Jordan, pg. 1, 2017). This negative portrayal leads to a larger amount of sex trafficking as well

as abusive situations due to content acceptable in film. This content is then misinterpreted as

acceptable to certain individuals instead of taking the content as a warning to prevent similar

situations.

The current MPAA film regulation system is not failing by any means economically,

although it does fail to filter mature content from youth. It can be argued that this young

exposure is beneficial, although there are many studies arguing against this statement. The

system I created for regulating film would minimize the amount of mature content viewed by

youth in our country. It would also hold parents responsible for the films they allow their

children to attend. By implementing the law restricting the purchase of movie tickets to minors,

there would be no room for audiences to complain about unwanted content in films their children

watch. As an adult, one has the opportunity to watch trailers and read film reviews before

purchasing tickets. This can prevent any individual from viewing unwanted content in films.

With the continual self-regulation of the film industry aided by government enforcement of new

laws, my regulation system has a positive outlook for success.

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Work Cited

"A Timeline of the Pre-Code Hollywood Era." Pre-Code.Com. N.p., 12 May 2018. Web. 28

Nov. 2018.

“CDC Newsroom.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention, 26 Sept. 2017, www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p0926-std-prevention.html.

Huesmann, L. Rowell, and Laurie S. Miller. “Long-Term Effects of Repeated Exposure to Media

Violence in Childhood.” SpringerLink, Springer, 1 Jan. 1994,

link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4757-9116-7_7.

Jordan, Sky. “The Media Is Skewing Our Ideas about Sex.” The Arizona State Press, 2017

www.statepress.com/article/2017/01/spopinion-the-media-is-skewing-our-ideas-about-se.

Merrill, Keith. "MPAA Board Members Not Exactly the Same as the Average Parent."

DeseretNews.com. Deseret News, 28 Mar. 1998. Web. 28 Nov. 2018.

Morris, Sam, and Guardian US interactive team. “Mass Shootings in the US: There Have Been

1,624 in 1,870 Days.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, www.theguardian.com/us-

news/ng-interactive/2017/oct/02/america-mass-shootings-gun-violence.

“Read ‘The Hidden Epidemic: Confronting Sexually Transmitted Diseases’ at NAP.edu.”

National Academies Press: OpenBook, 1997 www.nap.edu/read/5284/chapter/5#93.

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"The Hays Code / Useful Notes." TV Tropes. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2018.

“Violence in the Media and Entertainment (Position Paper).” AAFP Home, 7 June 2016,

www.aafp.org/about/policies/all/violence-media.html#.

Wilmoth, Josh. "How the MPAA Movie Rating Scale Fails Our Children." ReelRundown.

ReelRundown, 27 Dec. 2016. Web. 28 Nov. 2018.