Back in March, the Motion Picture Association of America re-launched its film-rating website, filmratings.com. While this may be old news to some, I just learned about it from a post on BoingBoing which makes fun of the rationales given for the ratings, which are available on the new website. Example: The movie “3 Ninjas Knuckle Up” was “rated PG-13 for non-stop ninja action.”
It’s fine to joke about particular ratings, but we shouldn’t forget that the MPAA’s rating system was created to avoid government censorship, which was a real possibility after the 1915 U.S. Supreme Court case Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, which ruled that “the exhibition of moving pictures is a business, pure and simple, originated and conducted for profit … not to be regarded, nor intended to be regarded by the Ohio Constitution, we think, as part of the press of the country, or as organs of public opinion.” By a unanimous vote, the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment did not apply to motion pictures because “they may be used for evil.” (There was also an issue of whether the First Amendment applied to state actions, but because the state constitution at issue was substantially similar to the U.S. Constitution, that was not a factor in the opinion).
After a number of Hollywood scandals and public outcry over the immorality of Hollywood in the 1920s, the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association (the precursor to the MPAA), adopted the Motion Pictures Production Code (known as the “Hays Code” after the first MPAA president) in 1930. The code required that “No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.”
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