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    What's In a Rating?

    Posted Wednesday, December 31, 2008 3:19 PM | By Nayeli Rodriguez
    Emily and Hanna, you might be interested in This Film Is Not Yet Rated, Kirby Dick's 2006 documentary about the Motion Picture Association of America.

    Through a side-by-side comparison of footage, Dick revealed several prevailing MPAA biases: beyond drawing distinctions that favor violent displays over sexual ones, the MPAA seems to punish homosexual and female sexual displays with harsher ratings. Additionally, Dick asserted that the MPAA is intimidated into assigning more lenient ratings to big studio films while cracking down on the content of movies that were independently produced.

    The MPAA claims to be comprised of average parents with children ages 5 to 17. Dick discovered, however, that some of the raters didn't even have children and none had received any formal training for their job. This might explain why you found their ratings (ostensibly created for parents' use) to be more than a little off-base.
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