Making my mark...

There is nothing I love more than making a good point to others, and then having them tell me they now agree with my stance. It sounds very snotty of me, but it's a good feeling when you suggest a book or TV show or whatever to someone and they tell you how much they liked it. I am having that moment right now as I convinced Kristi to do her persuasive speech on the ridiculousness that is the MPAA.

The MPAA is the board of people who rate movies for the general public, or as they say, for the kids benefit. Well, this group is nothing more than a self-serving, money grubbing, shit show, who only look out for themselves. They blatantly have double standards and won't fess up to their shenanigans. They say they are not censoring, but in effect it is what they do.

They side with big movie studios because they are the ones that finance their operation. If you have a movie for Paramount, and you are on the border of being rated NC-17, they will send you a laundry list of things that could be cut to get your movie rated R. But if you are Johnny Filmmaker, and you find yourself on that boundary, you get nothing more than a "as it stands right now, this is your rating." That ain't right and it all boils down to cash.

And don't even get me started on the difference between sex and violence. You could show an orphanage being burnt to the ground by a clown with a hatchet stuck in his head and get an R. But if you have a man walking naked from his shower to his bed, you get an NC-17 for dong swingin'. And I won't even delve into what they rate when it comes to a heterosexual scene/homosexual scene. Just be aware if it's a couple a dudes or a couple of ladies, it will get an NC-17 and not be at your local AMC or Marcus Theater.

My point is that ratings are outdated, vague, and useless. I looked at my copy of Dumb and Dumber yesterday, and it was rated PG-13 for off color humor. What does that even mean? Off-color humor? What is this 1886?

They need to define what is what and get rid of the labels. I just want more information to be available, because I think it is hillbilly nonsense that you can take your 6 year old with you to an R-rated movie. Dumb. Yes, ultimately the ratings are there to slightly inform and let a parent make their own decision. But a little more information never hurt anyone. And I don't think telling me something is rated PG-13 for off color humor is enough for me to really know the content of the film.