I think that the current movie rating system established by the MPAA allows for movie studios and producers to clearly rate what category their movie should be rated in. If you throw out the NC-17 rating which is rarely used anymore because most movies that could be rated that, are releasing two versions of the movie on dvd format in either Rated or Unrated versions, i feel that the four other ratings are the right amount.
The ‘G’ rating is self explanatory, the ‘PG’ rating is the only one where you really have to figure out whether it should be PG-13 or PG, and i really think that there should be some sort of criteria that separates the two other than parental cautiousness. ‘PG-13′, is also something where you can expect there might be brief nudity (nothing outrageous), and some coarse language, crass jokes, and violence. The ‘R’ rating is also something where going into the movie you know what to expect, there could be nudity, lots of language or no language, crass jokes, drug use and gore and violence.
Now not everything listed will be in every movie, which is why it is a great idea that the situations are listed below the rating for each movie.
When it comes to changes i would like to see made to the MPAA ratings would be not to make them voluntary for theater use. List out a basic set of criteria that involved number of profanities, partial or full nudity, drug use and violence. I know the violence part would be hard, and maybe you could go by how many minutes involve violence. I would not want the MPAA to get too picky, but i think that the difference between PG and PG-13 movies can sometimes be vague.
I also would be an advocate against adding anymore ratings to the list, 4 is plenty and really does cover everything under the book, i just think it should be a little more defined.
{ 2009 11 30 }