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Hollywood's real dark side: 'ratings creep'

By STEVE PERSALL
Published May 13, 2005

It's amusing that some parents are concerned about Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith receiving a PG-13 rating for several violent scenes. They're upset that George Lucas added gruesome injuries, decapitations, even murdered children to his previously PG-wholesome saga, overlooking amputated hands in Episodes V and II.

As if Anakin Skywalker would become ruthless Darth Vader by peaceful means.

Where were these complaining parents for the past decade, when film violence in PG and PG-13 movies - along with profanity and sexual content - escalated to a level formerly reserved for R-rated movies?

Maybe it takes a cultural phenomenon like Star Wars displaying such a dark side for parents to notice.

But the trend toward more permissive MPAA movie ratings - known as ratings creep - has happened for years. A recent study by the UCLA School of Public Health on movie violence came to conclusions that are true today, based on a survey of films released in 1994, two years before the UCLA study began.

Anyone who doesn't agree that movie content is generally more violent since then hasn't seen too many movies. The credibility gaps researchers pointed out in the MPAA's ratings system have only gotten wider.

"At the time we began, (the data) was current," said Lucille Jenkins, lead author of the UCLA report. "This is one of a few papers we've written on that research.

"Over 11 years, the MPAA hasn't changed any of its process, in terms of the ratings. It hasn't added any child-development specialists to the (ratings) board, hasn't added any new types of ratings, like a PG-16 or PG-18. We feel that the sample is representative of the same issues as today."

The UCLA study focused on the top-100 grossing films of 1994, except for Disney's animated, G-rated The Lion King and The Madness of King George, which was an unrated release. Violent acts were divided into three levels of intensity, from mild events such as shoving and slapping, to nonlethal aggression such as gunfire that doesn't kill, to graphic deadly force. Only three films - Disclosure (R), Quiz Show and Reality Bites (both PG-13) - didn't contain an act of violence.

The 1994 film with the highest-charted number of violent behaviors was Timecop starring Jean-Claude van Damme, with 110. Coming in third was Arnold Schwarzenegger's True Lies with 91. Both are rated R, but it's the second-place finisher that tipped off researchers about something in the MPAA system failing.

Disney's live-action version of The Jungle Book, runnerup with 97 violent acts, is rated PG, allowing unchallenged access while suggesting to parents that "some material may not be suitable for children." That's more mayhem than even Pulp Fiction and Natural Born Killers, released the same year with R ratings. Certainly Quentin Tarantino's imagination differs from Rudyard Kipling's, but the comparative frequency of aggression in The Jungle Book is surprising.

Even the infrequency of violence in some PG and R films in 1994 is remarkable. Both ratings categories contained at least one movie featuring only one violent act.

"I don't think we're telling them anything that they didn't already know," said Jenkins. "It's just that we have the science now to back it up. Maybe that's why nobody (in the film industry) is jumping up and attacking (the findings) in any way."

So, where does the MPAA draw its nebulous lines? Objectionable language is obviously important, with the MPAA's rating descriptions noting that more times than any other factor in 1994's PG-rated films. Profanity was the second-most noted factor among R ratings, after violence. The UCLA study suggests that MPAA ratings are decided more often by what isn't in a movie, rather than what is.

Using the MPAA's own words from its Web site (www.mpaa.org) a PG rating is given to films in which "explicit sex scenes and scenes of drug use are absent; nudity, if present, is seen only briefly; horror and violence do not exceed moderate levels."

Meanwhile, PG-13 ratings can go to films in which "rough or persistent violence is absent; sexually oriented nudity is generally absent; some scenes of drug use may be seen; one use of the harsher sexually derived words may be heard."

When the MPAA describes R-rated content, the qualifications become vague, focused on "use of language, theme, violence, sex or . . . portrayal of drug use." In essence, the MPAA's definition of R-rated material can fit inside PG-13 qualifications. Only the frequency and severity of those factors lead to an R, and only a group of between eight and 13 ratings board members, many of them parents, decides how much is too much for PG and PG-13 standards.

Look closely at the MPAA's descriptions and ask a few questions. What exactly are the "moderate levels" of violence allowed in PG films? How brief can nudity be before it's unsuitable for a PG? What does "generally absent" mean with regard to nudity in PG-13 films? And what's the difference between drug abuses depicted in PG-13 films compared with R-rated movies?

Those vague, generic rating descriptions seen in movie ads and posters only tell us there's material in the movie that could be objectionable. They don't employ detailed descriptions of what kind of violence, profanity, drugs, nudity or sex are involved. Some rating descriptions for PG-13 horror movies are scarier than R descriptions. Using the qualifying terms "some," "brief" and "strong" don't do the job.

The UCLA study concludes that a quantitative measure of objectionable material should be initiated by the MPAA. Give parents an accurate count of how many objectionable acts are included in films, and a more precise description of what kind of acts they are. How graphic is the violence, sex and profanity? How often do they occur?

"We're not attacking the MPAA; we'd like to come across as an ally," said Jenkins. "My fingers are crossed that they would ask an outside organization to do a quantitative analysis, similar to what we did. They can hire somebody to watch the films, record the number of (violent) acts, record what we term the seriousness of those acts.

"As they sit down to discuss the films, they would at least have a consistent measure, some sort of number system that would be a little more concrete."

The more parents know, the more likely they'll make decisions to benefit children, rather than expose them to such material and fret about it later.

But that's where the profit factor kicks in, as it usually does in Hollywood. The MPAA works for the studios making the movies, looking out for its best interests from Washington, D.C., to the local megaplex. Anything the MPAA does to shore up the rating system may adversely affect ticket sales. Making moviegoers smarter simply isn't profitable, whether it's tighter ratings or more truthful advertising.

"This is a tricky situation because (the MPAA) is considered a self-appointed watchdog agency," said Jenkins. "Any big industry that only evaluates itself, and is only monitored by itself, and doesn't have any external evaluation, is suspect."

The UCLA study of the MPAA ratings system's approach to violence in films can be found online at http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/ful/115/5/e512

- Steve Persall can be reached at 727 893-8365 or persall@sptimes.com

[Last modified May 12, 2005, 09:16:02]