[Wikipedia-l] MPAA ratings (Was: Two issues here: what is legal to have on the server and what is legal in the user's nation)

Fri May 23 01:22:21 UTC 2003

Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:

>The Cunctator wrote:

>>While technically true, that's grossly misleading. There are few
>>legal restrictions on nudity in the movies, but there are draconian
>>quasi-legal industry restrictions.

>>Instead of "the American market is such that too much explicit sex will
>>actually hurt the mass-market value of a movie" the more accurate
>>portrayal is

>>Any explicit sex will prevent a movie from being shown in any mainstream
>>theater, with few exceptions.

>>The MPAA decides the moral code for acceptable movies with an iron fist,
>>often demanding changes to the movie for it to get a "non-adult" rating.

>>Any movie they deem to be NC-17 has no financial future in U.S. movie
>>theaters.

>Cunc is the one misrepresenting the facts here: there are /no/
>legal restrictions on nudity in movies of any kind, period.

Assuming that TC wrote "few" instead of "no" just to cover his ass
in case any restrictions did exist, this is not a misrepresentation by him.
His point is that quasi-legal restrictions do exist --
even if there are few (or no) truly legal ones.
(We examine this claim below.)

>Yes, the
>MPAA rules with "an iron fist", but it is precisely because that's
>the way the American public wants it.

Which American public?  The teenagers that want to see an "R" film but can't?
No, only those segments of the American public with the quasi-legal ability
to force the movie industry to their way of thinking.
To wit, those segments that were able to get *Congress* interested,
forcing the MPAA to adopt its quasi-legal rules
in order to avoid the imposition of truly legal rules from above.
They are indeed forcing their puritan views on the rest of us,
in a quasi-legal fashion (big industry guns).
The ratings were *not* the result of an outcry by the *public*,
nor were the specific restrictions on age associated with them.

>He may not like the fact that
>most Americans want it that way, but the fact remains that they do.

Well, most laws, like most quasi-legal means of enforcement,
have respect by a significant chunk of the population.
I don't know if it's a majority here or not, but that's irrelevant.

>There have certainly been protests of the MPAA (and I personally
>consider Jack Valenti to be the Antichrist, for many reasons), but
>those protests have been from a small minority of folks like us, not
>from the people as a whole, who still overwhelmingly support them.
>You can't blame the failure of adult-only movies on anything but
>good old American prudery.

Certainly.  Good old American prudery that in this case
is being enforced by quasi-legal means through the MPAA.
Where is the misrepresentation in Cunc's post?

Let's be more specific.
TC was responding to a claim that market share for nudity is bad
because people will *choose* not to see a movie with nudity.
This is entirely false -- *lot* of people want to see nudity.
If they could see it in a mainstream (not porn) theatre, then they would.
But they can't -- that's the quasi-legal rule enforced *on* them.
That this rule has widespread public support is not the issue;
the fact remains that plenty of people would view the movies if they could.
The loss of marketability is entirely the fault of the ratings system,
which is a quasi-legal enforcement mechanism, however widely supported.

-- Toby