If "Hunger Games" should be able to bypass the ratings because kids can learn from it, then why shouldn't a film like "A Clockwork Orange," a better film, should also get a pass?
When society decides makes altering attitudes about any conduct a priority,an immediate danger is that it will destroy other societal safe-guards and damage other valid cultural norms in its tunnel-vision.
“Hunger Games,” a film about the consequences of bullying based on a best-selling novel, is about to hit theaters with an R rating, meaning that teens, the prime target of the nation’s anti-bullying effort, can’t see the film without their parents’ permission. Katy Butler, a young bullying victim, has led a national effort to get the film’s ratings reversed. Predictably, politicians have jumped on the bandwagon.
“Over 13 million American youths will be bullied over the course of this year alone, making it the most common form of violence experienced by young people in our nation,” begins a letter from Rep. Mike Honda (D.- Calif.) to his colleagues, in support of Butler’s campaign. “We cannot hope to control this epidemic … without discussing tough issues publicly and bringing them to the forefront of the consciousness of the American public.”
“YES! RIGHT ON! OF COURSE!” Except that what Butler and Honda are proposing essentially undermines the entire purpose of movie ratings, and if their efforts succeed, there is no way anyone will be able to argue that the system has a shred of integrity at all.
The ratings system is designed to inform parents and other viewers regarding the content of a film’s language and portrayals of sex and violence. A rating is not a verdict on the value of the film itself, nor on whether the film might be beneficial, uplifting, educational or otherwise enlightening for minors. Nor should it be: that’s none of anyone’s business but the parents themselves. If, however, the system is designed to convey an objective assessment based on quantifiable data—Do characters use “fuck” or racial epithets? Is graphic violence portrayed? Frontal nudity? Graphic sex?—then that assessment cannot and should not be changed according to a completely unrelated factor—that it’s a really good movie that teens should see.
Would “Hunger Games” be the first really good film (if it is a good film) that the rating system prevented kids from seeing without their parents? Of course not. “Godfather” 1 and 2 has vivid lessons about corruption, moral compromise and ethics: my son had seen both by the time he was 13. “A Clockwork Orange” teaches about the corrosive power of violence, the dangers of cultural rot, and the evil of pure totalitarianism. My son saw that film when he was 16. “Inglorious Basterds” teaches kids humor, irony, moral complexity and what really smart dialogue, a wonderfully plotted script and superbly directed scenes look like. 15. Are those benefits less valid reasons to ignore the ratings system than inveighing against bullying? Not in my household—my son is no bully.
Either we are going to have a system that objectively measures language, sex and violence for the protection of children, or we aren’t. As I just pointed out, the whole system is predicated on the assumption that guarding the delicate eyes, ears and brains of kids from harsh language, violence and sex is worth keeping them from independent viewing of films with other beneficial qualities. If that assumption is still accepted, then “Hunger Games” can only be an exception of we believe that preventing bullying is not only more important than this goal, but also that “Hunger Games” is an epic exception, a film more worth seeing than any other violent, sex-filled, vulgar film ever made.
It can’t possibly be. People are just obsessed with bullying right now.
So the first problem is that if you make an exception for “Hunger Games,” it is pure politics. By no reasonable allocation of priorities is “Hunger Games” more worthy of defying the ratings than many other films that have had to accept the limitation on their audiences.
The second problem is that once you change the rating based on the subjective factor of the film’s other virtues, then the ratings system is a joke, a fraud, or an impossible mess. Now it includes not only language, sex and violence, but artistic, spiritual and educational worth. Once that’s the equation, I don’t care if the last Rob Schneider movie has the language and plot elements of the Care Bears…it get an R, because it will rot my kid’s brain.
Anti-bullying zealots don’t care about the ratings system, of course. If the film ratings system, which took many years of contentious debate and study to get established, is a casualty of advancing their cause, so be it. I don’t care myself: as I already indicated by the films my son has seen with my blessing, I think sex, violence and vulgarity are useful tools in drama, and also that a good story well told can have benefits that outweigh even gratuitous uses of these features. The point, and the only point, I want to make is that in its efforts to make “Hunger Games” accessible, anti-bullying advocates are willing to kill the results of another long battle by activists trying to make society safer for children. And maybe the ratings should be killed.
If so, however, they should be killed after thought and analysis, and not as an unintended consequence of passionate tunnel-vision for one narrow objective.
[Part I is here.]
Ethics Alarms 
In the past, I volunteered with anti-child abuse programs and ran into mild conflict with my fellow volunteers over the issue of violence in the media. I pointed out that most movies, novels, plays, and other works opposing violence also depicted a great deal of violence. The difference is whether the violence is used to sensitize the audience or desensitize the audience to violence. The problem here is not that some want to make an exception for Hunger Games; the problem is that the current rating is useless. It is easier to count how many acts of violence or utterances of “fuck” there are than to evaluate social value of course, so we are not likely to have a system that actually reflects the value or intent of any given work.
I agree with you, but the people who advocated and still advocate the ratings don’t—they believe the words and violence, sex etc are independently important. So kill the system for the right reason—it’s stupid—rather than because it is an impediment in this one case.
I’m glad I read the comments before posting, as I was going to make this same point, though I do have one quibble: the only thing objective or quantifiable is usage of Fuck. Everying else is subjective. There’s no “you can have 5 seconds of boobs in PG-13” rule. Sometimes 5 seconds is PG-13 and sometimes it’s R, and it’s completely up to the whims of a handful of anonymous people.
I think, with internet, trade reviews do a better job than the ratings. The language factor should just be eliminated completely.
I agree. This is one place where the market can do the job of a ratings board.
The purpose of this argument scares the hell out of me. As one press-screener’s review had it, and as the trailers make clear, “The Hunger Games tells the story of a televised fight to the death between(sic) a group of youngsters in which only one can survive.” If I believed there were any merit to the MPAA system, yes, R is what it should be. [“This Film is Not Yet Rated” is the movie to see on this subject.]
Hunger Games appears to be a compendium of TV-reality shows excised from a solid body of work (‘ripped from the headlines” as it were). What happens on the screen has little to do with bullying and everything to do with boxoffice. It is a spectacle calling for an audience, an audience in the position of watching (not being, not identifying with) the fictional Hunger Games contestants.
Anyone can learn the real lessons of Hunger Games. Since 2008, the BOOK has been out in hardcover, paperback (cheaper than the movie!), eBook and even audiobook. It’s about power and poverty, “big brother,” war, pollution, sophisticated manipulation of personality, torn loyalties, hidden motives, betrayal, discrimination, torture … and bullying … at heart, about children forced to kill other children. — A great deal of the thought and feelings engendered by this fictionalized society appears to be extrapolated from our own. It’s the motivations and the emotions that are missing.
Reading a well written story is a creative process of imagining and interpreting. The book has some terrifyingly vivid scenes of butchery and unassuageable grief — but it’s the ideas that are harrowing; they are not illustrated, nor do they need to be. The ideas promote thought and lead (hopefully) to insight; the cinematic visions are slated to promote nightmares.
Am I guessing? Of course. Based on trailers and pre-reviews. If it’s true to the book, I’m right (and don’t forget the game app on your iPhone!); if it’s not, it’s a bomb. I would much rather the latter than a denatured plot package wrapped up in 142 minutes, fait accompli, of violence and unremitting loss. There are children-killing-children (and adults) happening outside science fiction, today. Bolivia, Uganda, Indonesia, Yemen, and on and on. Nothing colorful, courageous or romantic about it.
Least of all, do I want to see an R rating. Which sounds hypocritical since if I hadn’t finagled as many as I could of the books that were “banned in Boston” and forbidden by the Catholic Index, I would have missed an early start on literature at its greatest and most entertaining. But the economic lesson learned from those lists (and some “parents'” lists still today) is that proscribing anything is the surest way to sell it, especially to youngsters.
YA books are exploring their readership further every day — there is little more varied, thought-provoking, enticing and enlightening in adult reading; meanwhile, cinema and television are backing further into dark corners, poking at the same envelopes, fearing criticism (and rightfully so, given the knee-jerk political interference of the likes of Rep. Honda), and exploiting the YA books and the teen market built on Twilight mentality.
I thought I had an answer when I began writing this. But I don’t, Jack. I think your son is very fortunate — to be growing up in your family … during the period prior to hunger games.
I recall that something very similar happened with the movie Scarface in the 80’s. The MPAA had given it an X rating multiple times, then later agreed to give it an R rating for cultural reasons (that it accurately portrayed the criminal drug situation and should be seen by the general public for that reason).
–Dwayne
I missed that. That makes no sense to me at all, as you could surmise. It would make as much sense to waive the rating because Pacino’s over-the-top Tony is one of the great hoots of modern cinema, or because “Say “Hello” to my little friend!” is such a memorable line.