#@&*%

I wrote the following for The South Bend Tribune on April 18, 2012.   While some of the details may be a bit dated, the overall premise still vexes me to this day and if anyone can explain to me why things are the way they are with regards to the MPAA, I would be interested.  And, yes, I have seen Kirby Dick's documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated.  All that film does is vex me even more.  Please, by all means... discuss...



In the last few years, the subject of bullying among our nation’s youth has been in the news quite a bit. I don’t remember bullying being particularly newsworthy when I was growing up. As I recall, it was just part of life. I was fairly heavyset and made pretty good grades in school. To put it mildly, I was a fat nerd. Therefore, I just kind of accepted it as a part of life and moved on when I could.

Of course, 20 years ago we didn’t have the prevalence of the Internet and only really rich people had cell phones. Today, it’s a different story. Not only do we have cell phones, we have phones that can take pictures and transmit them to anyone and everyone. Lives can be ruined at the press of a button.

A new documentary film aimed at teens that addresses this problem and seeks to end it has recently been released. It’s titled simply Bully and follows the lives of high school students and how bullying affects them. The film, while highly praised by critics, was given an R-rating by the Motion Picture Association of America because of frequent use of the dreaded “F-word.” An R rating (for those of you who actually pay attention to these things) means that no one under the age of 17 is admitted into the theater to see the film without a parent or guardian present. Assuming that the ticket clerks in movie theaters actually enforce this rule, that means that many of the people who need to see this film, specifically teens, wouldn’t be able to.

Harvey Weinstein, whose company distributes Bully, appealed to the MPAA’s ratings board to lower the rating to a PG-13 so that it could more easily reach its intended audience. The board refused. Weinstein, who has fought this fight before — most notably over last year’s Best Picture Oscar winner, The King’s Speech–decided to release the film unrated. Most unrated films are treated by theaters as if they have an NC-17 rating, meaning that no one under 17 is allowed in to see it, even with adult supervision.

According to imdb.com, “Finally, the filmmakers agreed to cut some, but not all, of the relevant language, and the MPAA did agree to re-rate the movie PG-13. The PG-13 version does keep intact all the language in the scene that was the main point of contention between the filmmakers and the MPAA, in which a 12-year-old is physically and verbally attacked on his school bus by his classmates.”

This whole thing concerns me for many reasons. First of all, I think this film is an important one that needed to be made and it needs to be seen by as many people as possible. Clearly bullying has become a real problem in this country and something needs to be done about it. I think the first step is talking about it, which this film obviously wants to do. I don’t think it should be rated R, but I also don’t think that the filmmakers should have edited the film to satisfy a handful of people who are in a position to dictate what is appropriate for someone of a certain age to see. I really feel that parents should be the final judge of what their children see. Unfortunately, I realize that not all parents are as diligent in their duties as mine were.

My second concern is with the MPAA’s ratings board itself. Its members seem to have taken it upon themselves to protect our youth from hearing foul language. I have news for them: It’s not working! If you have a documentary that depicts actual teens actually being bullied, both physically and verbally, then obviously the teen population is already familiar with the words that you don’t want them to hear, let alone say. Bleeping the word and/or blurring the mouths of those who use it, as they do on network television, doesn’t make any difference. We still know what’s being said. The same is true of euphemisms. Let’s be honest — we all know what the “F” in “F-word” stands for.

Which brings me to my biggest concern: changing standards in society. It would appear that in the last 40 years or so, we as a society have become freer and more open in the way we express ourselves. However, in spite of that, especially in the last 20 years, the MPAA has become stricter in its film ratings. (For the purposes of this writing, I’m only addressing language. Sex and violence are completely different issues.)

When I was in college, a professor in the telecommunications department at Ball State University informed me that a film got an R rating with its fourth utterance of the “F-word.” And when I look at the films of that time, that seems to be accurate. Films like 1995′s The American President and 1997′s As Good As It Gets both have PG-13 ratings and each use the word or some variation of it three times. 1989′s When Harry Met Sally… has exactly four and has an R.

Today, when I listen to commentary tracks on DVDs, I constantly hear filmmakers say things like, “We were only allowed to use the word one time and still maintain a PG-13 rating.” Assuming that films now get an R rating for the second use of the word, does that mean that all those PG-13 rated films of the mid-90s are now inappropriate for younger viewers because they used it more frequently? Should we go back and re-rate all these films to reflect what the MPAA ratings board currently thinks is appropriate for our children? Should a film like 1976′s All the President’s Men, which is rated PG, now carry an R? It uses some variation of that word a total of 11 times (yes, I counted!). If the film were to be re-released theatrically, would it have to have a different rating than the one assigned to it 36 years ago?

In the end, I think that the MPAA’s rating board is the real bully in this case. I’m not saying that films shouldn’t have ratings. Films like 2009′s The Hangover and last year’s smash Bridesmaids are clearly aimed at adults and we need some way of conveying that in a film’s marketing campaign. But in the case of Bully, the film has the potential to change lives for the better, particularly those of bullied teens. And yet, the MPAA seems intent on protecting children from hearing and seeing on a movie screen that which they already deal with on a daily basis. Are they really this afraid of words? I can’t decide if the ratings board is prudish, out of touch, or just in denial. Perhaps it’s all three.