World of Suck

In this huge nanny state, we have ratings and warnings and such things they tell us if we could be offended at the media we've decided to view. And if so, how offended they think we could be. They coach it in terms of protecting our youth, but it's really more of an offensive meter.

What I don't understand is how fucked up the system is. Or rather, the systems. They don't seem to agree on anything.

First off, there is no rating in print media. No book comes with a sticker telling you that it has some fucked up imagery inside. I suppose you could say the shrink wrap on skin mags equates to an adult only rating but I think that's a stretch.

Music has only 2 ratings. Explicit lyrics and Not. That means that music is either OK for kids or not OK for kids, without really defining what age that line exists at. For some reason, 2 groups is enough for music.

But not for say... Movies. Because it's visual, we apparently have to add a whole slew of new ratings. G for everyone, PG for older kids, PG-13 for teens, R for adult supervision and NC-17 for adults only Honestly, that seems pretty reasonable. The only real issue I have with it is that the NC-17 rating is used as a bludgeon to prevent movies from going overboard. It functions as an effective ban on the movie because it can't get into major theaters with that rating. That ban allows the rating board to effectively censor movies or force them to be edited into their guidelines, which are often vague, enigmatic and often enforce their own mores over the true content of the movie (please, go watch This Film Not Yet Rated for more).

Next up we have TV. Movie guidelines aren't enough for TV. They need more. Y for all children, Y7 for older kids, Y7/FV for.. older kids, but with fantasy violence... yeah whatever.... G for general consumption, PG for tweens, 14 for teens, and MA for adults. To me, the Y-G breakdown is odd, but I guess I can understand it for helping parents find programming for their child's age group.

Finally, we have video games. Which has yet another rating system. C for childhood, E for everyone, E+10 for everyone that's over 10 (not really everyone, right?) T for teen, M for mature (adults only) and AO for adults only. I know, it sounds like I stuttered, but I didn't. M and AO have the exact same requirements. The concept is like R and NC-17, but they failed at definitions because the rule is the same, only an adult can buy it. Also, much like the movie industry, the game industry uses AO as a bludgeon to force games to conform to a standard or risk a loss of sales.

I know, that's all a very long winded explanation of things you probably already know. But I think it's important to go through all of that to get to my point. Those systems have some generally easy to see crossover in ratings, on the surface. But once you go deeper, they don't really agree on much. Homosexuality in music is fine, but it's almost a certain R in movies. Violence is fine in movies, but not in games. Sex is cool for books, but right out in TV.

The problem is that all these systems use a different set of rules to define themselves. They can't agree on what is offensive or how offended to be by it. You can Fuck 3 times, but not 4. You can show nipple, but not ass. You can allude to drugs, but not show someone using them. Two guys can live together, but not if they're gay.

The ratings groups have a difficult job. They have to walk a fine line of moral objection across a diverse spectrum. But the way it is now, it's not useful. You have a bunch of systems that are close to one another in form and function, but diverse on the content of those ratings. And other media that is either totally unregulated or nearly so.

The whole set of systems are just fucked up. It's no wonder parents get confused.