I agree with this, and I have a better version of ratings!
-
Promontorium — 12 years ago(August 04, 2013 05:40 PM)
The premise of the MPAA ratings, and yours too apparently, is to inform parents about the content of a movie in relation to its appropriateness for children. The ratings system entirely ignores adults. Which is interesting, because in real life, adults are the ones who seem to need the ratings the most.
But a rating system might be better off not focusing on age, rather actual content.
It seems people only focus on four aspects of visual arts in regards to censorship or ratings. Sex, violence, language, and adult themes. Adult themes generally includes, drugs, drinking, smoking, or committing criminal acts. It would also be beneficial to weigh how words are spoken within language, not just the words themselves. As a film where a man is yelling at a child who is in terror would probably be considered far more intense than a film where the same man drops an F bomb in front of a kid but is merely complaining about gum on his shoe.
I think a mistake of the MPAA is pretending to be giving ratings as an art form. Nobody is buying it, and it's not helping anyone. Film ratings shouldn't be entirely subjective. The members shouldn't need to be secretive because the rating should be easily assessed. Ratings are necessary for people who want a hint at what they're in for. Not a social critique of a film. MPAA entirely fails at this. A mom doesn't care about the integrity of a raters decision making. The mom just wants to know if she's letting her 12 year old watch a porn or a gorefest.
It is also clear that of the four categories, none are really equal. A moderate quantity of swearing isn't the same as a moderate quantity of violence in a film, so creating a rating system should account for this.
A preliminary idea here, the numbers could easily be changed, particularly in the presence of some good mathematics.
Basic categories
Violence: None, Mild, Moderate, Significant, Extreme
Sexuality: None, Mild, Moderate, Significant, Extreme
Adult Themes: None, Mild, Moderate, Significant, Extreme
Intense Language: None, Mild, Moderate, Significant, Extreme
A simple point system could help create a set for determining a film's rating. Mild violence would be more important than mild sexuality.
None in all categories would be a 0. Here is one idea:
Violence: 0, 2, 7, 15, 40
Sexuality: 0, 1, 5, 11, 35
Adult Themes: 0, 1, 3, 5, 20
Language: 0, 1, 2, 3, 10
Bambi would be 2, 1, 1, 0 = 4.
Django Unchained: 15, 5, 5, 3 = 28
You could break them up into groups 0-4 General Audience. 5-9 Discretion Advised. 9-16 Moderate adult content. 17-34 Strong Adult Content. 35+ Extremely Graphic Content.
What I believe to be fundamental however is to admit that this is an attempt to censor. To claim its some high minded critique of film is simply a lie. It's an attempt to censor to compel a film maker to remove things to appeal to a larger audience. So in making such decisions, there should be very clear standards. They may be changed with the passage of time to represent modern social norms, but to leave film makers flailing trying to make a marketable film and you refusing to tell them by what standard you're judging, that's simply vile .
It should be as simple as "90+ F-cks is Extreme" "More than 50% of the film being sexual intercourse is Extreme" etc.
Or something to that effect. I think I have some good ideas here but it needs more work. -
Mannequin — 12 years ago(September 02, 2013 10:41 PM)
Your rating system is completely absurd. I think it's stupid to relegate these types of ratings to ages because people develop in completely different ways across many different cultures. One 13 year old might not be the same as another 13 year old. You're making generalizations about age and that's just as flawed as the existing system.
And for the record, it's not true that the MPAA only have 5 ratings because if something is rated PG they tell you why right next to it. So that sort-of expands their levels of ratings and you, as a viewer or parent, can determine if it's a suitable film.
I rate it all.
http://www.imdb.com/user/ur2136437/ratings -
DavidTL — 11 years ago(November 03, 2014 03:31 PM)
First of all, as interesting as this is. We should not just use this on the parents guide.
Second thing, '13' should not have strong bloody violence. What is the difference between 13's strong bloody violence and 17's strong bloody violence? It should be moderate or just strong violence.