Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, This is Chuck and welcome to this weekend's
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know Selects episode. This one I picked
Speaker 1: out How the m p a A Works from June
Speaker 1: just a few years ago, and I picked this one because, well,
Speaker 1: kind of because I'm doing my new show Movie Crush,
Speaker 1: where I talked to people about their favorite all time movie,
Speaker 1: and my new episodes called Mini Crushes where I don't
Speaker 1: have a guest, but it's just Nolan High in here
Speaker 1: kind of rapping about stuff, recommendations and calling Facebook questions
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and it just kind of got
Speaker 1: me thinking along the lines of movies in This episode
Speaker 1: on the Motion Picture Association of America was a really
Speaker 1: good one. And if you are just confused by the
Speaker 1: mp A what they do, this will clear it all
Speaker 1: up for you. So please to enjoy How the mp
Speaker 1: a A Works. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from
Speaker 1: House Stuff Works dot com. M Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry.
Speaker 1: But where's wal though right over there apparently, and I
Speaker 1: wish people could hear in between stuff. I think Jerry
Speaker 1: was recording that last one. Oh yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: She used to give us a neat little outtakes, but
Speaker 1: she doesn't do that anymore. Those days are long gone.
Speaker 1: They exist in the vault though. How you doing not good? No? No,
Speaker 1: I don't know what's wrong with me. I am off today.
Speaker 1: Out of your game. Yeah, it's weird. Well, I think
Speaker 1: this is the perfect podcast to set you straight. Why
Speaker 1: because it's something that we both have some passion about against. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think anybody who's seen um the documentary this film
Speaker 1: is not yet rated, that would be uh very difficult
Speaker 1: to not be persuade, didn't to feel strongly about the
Speaker 1: m p a A and its practices. Yeah, and at
Speaker 1: least how they do things. But we're going to try
Speaker 1: to be objective. Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say
Speaker 1: up front, I have no problem with rating of films
Speaker 1: content so parents can decide whether or not it's appropriate.
Speaker 1: It's valuable, but I think there are ways to do
Speaker 1: it that I don't think the mp A does. Yes,
Speaker 1: So how how I just wanted to float that early on. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think that was probably smart. Okay, Um, I don't
Speaker 1: have kids, so I don't really whatever, But I mean
Speaker 1: I can understand the value of that kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it gives you an idea of Like I like
Speaker 1: having an idea what I'm about to see too. I
Speaker 1: feel like I can tell just from watching a trailer
Speaker 1: previusing a movie poster. I'm pretty um, I'm pretty intuitive
Speaker 1: when it comes to the marketing techniques of movies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think like being a film nerd, it's like,
Speaker 1: is the New Uh? Is the New Avengers movie gonna
Speaker 1: be rated R? That really tells you something. It won't be. No,
Speaker 1: it never would be, because PG thirteen is the the
Speaker 1: h that's the strike zone these days. It really is.
Speaker 1: Apparently PG thirteen movies pull in more money than all
Speaker 1: other ratings combined. And it's a relatively new phenomenon. You
Speaker 1: want to talk about its origin, let's do it. So
Speaker 1: back in a man named Steven Spielberg had two movies out.
Speaker 1: Who Steven Spielberg right? Uh? He directed one, Indiana Jones
Speaker 1: and The Temporary Doom, and he produced another, Gremlins, and
Speaker 1: both of them caught. He caught a lot of heat
Speaker 1: from both of them. Sure, Indiana Jones for the heart
Speaker 1: removal scene specifically, Yeah, but also the snake, the live
Speaker 1: snake at the feast thing, yea, all the snake babies,
Speaker 1: the eyeballs, all that stuff. Uh. And then with Gremlins,
Speaker 1: it was just downright terrifying in a lot of different places,
Speaker 1: especially if you're a kid. And the reason he caught
Speaker 1: heat was because both of those movies were rated PG.
Speaker 1: And so, uh, Spielberg went to the m p a A,
Speaker 1: the Motion Picture Association of America, and said, let's do
Speaker 1: something about this because he's clearly aren't our movies, but
Speaker 1: they apparently aren't PG movies either, so maybe we should
Speaker 1: come with something in between. And PG thirteen was born. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this was before he had all this way in
Speaker 1: the world. He was influential, but it wasn't like Spielberg today,
Speaker 1: who could have just waved his wand and made it happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think even at the time he was important.
Speaker 1: He Yeah, there were very few directors at that time
Speaker 1: who could have gotten something like that done too. But um,
Speaker 1: so that's where PG thirteen came from. And uh that,
Speaker 1: like you said, that's the strike zone now. And the
Speaker 1: reason why is because that is the kind of movie
Speaker 1: that caters to um, young teenage boys who apparently are
Speaker 1: the most successful at getting girls to go to movies
Speaker 1: with them. So if you can get a movie rated
Speaker 1: PG thirteen, you're going to make a bunch of money.
Speaker 1: Plus it makes sense, it's right there in the middle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. But the problem is it's become a means
Speaker 1: of almost advertising that rating rather than cautioning parents. It's
Speaker 1: a way of attracting the audience. It's like, this isn't
Speaker 1: some kids PG movie. This is as close to an
Speaker 1: OUR movie as you can get in Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think filmmakers try to achieve that rating, um by either
Speaker 1: scaling back their our rated movie, or juicing up their
Speaker 1: PG movie or adding more violence. Apparently PG thirteen movies
Speaker 1: are um have tripled in violence over the last like
Speaker 1: a few decades, and um they now have, according to
Speaker 1: one study, more violence than there are rated counterparts in
Speaker 1: different kinds of violence that you didn't used to see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, all right, I guess we should go
Speaker 1: back in time a little bit. Let's is it way
Speaker 1: back machine? Sure, let's go. Let's go a way back
Speaker 1: in time in Hollywood. All right. It's Hollywood and Vine
Speaker 1: is a viable intersection in Hollywood at the time, unlike now,
Speaker 1: although people are gonna say no, they built that area
Speaker 1: back up. Yeah. Uh, And that is when the m
Speaker 1: p A was born in the early nineteen twenties. And
Speaker 1: at the time it was up to local authorities or
Speaker 1: your state or your municipality to either stamps something as
Speaker 1: moral or immoral. Um, there were no ratings on movies.
Speaker 1: And thanks to a guy named Will Hayes who was
Speaker 1: the first president of the m p A, he installed
Speaker 1: the Haze Code and said, um, you're either going to
Speaker 1: pass or fail. It's either gonna be stamped demorl or moral. Right.
Speaker 1: And the reason Will Hayes, who is the m p
Speaker 1: a A president, came up with the Haze Code, which
Speaker 1: was really extensive. It was like if you, uh, if
Speaker 1: you talk about the government, it always has to be good. Uh,
Speaker 1: sexuality has to be like repressed, and just basically how
Speaker 1: you think about all movies from like the thirties and forties,
Speaker 1: squeaky clean. Basically like the division between good and evil
Speaker 1: is very clearly defined that the good guy always wins.
Speaker 1: And if you didn't fall into that Haze code, like
Speaker 1: you said, your movie would be stamped immoral. But the
Speaker 1: whole reason he came up with this code was because
Speaker 1: local municipalities could pass their own obscenity laws and that
Speaker 1: could be bad for business. So then not even get
Speaker 1: your film exhibited. Um. So remember we're in the A c.
Speaker 1: L U episode where we're talking about that one Um,
Speaker 1: that one movie that New York just the Catholic said no,
Speaker 1: you can't show that here, and the A C. L
Speaker 1: You went to work getting getting the Catholics beaten in court, right,
Speaker 1: even though it was just a bad movie something to
Speaker 1: do with well, I mean it did, but it shouldn't
Speaker 1: have been shown because it was so terrible. Was it bad?
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Yeah, I mean it was supposed to
Speaker 1: be not very good. Um, but it happened like that
Speaker 1: kind of thing happened a lot like local, local town
Speaker 1: said no, we're not going to show that movie. So
Speaker 1: Hayes figured out if if Hollywood policed itself, then they
Speaker 1: could control what, you know, what movies came out, and
Speaker 1: therefore everybody could make a bunch of money. That's right,
Speaker 1: and that's the point of the n p A. There
Speaker 1: the lobbying arm of six major Hollywood studios there there,
Speaker 1: they work for them. Yeah, well yeah, that's one way
Speaker 1: to say it. But they and it's just those six too,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Uh well, yeah, I mean you. There's definitely
Speaker 1: an argument. These days the independent filmmakers have a much
Speaker 1: rougher time with the m B a UM, but most
Speaker 1: of the indies too, are eventually distributed by the majors. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I got you. You know what I'm saying. Uh So,
Speaker 1: flash forward a bit in our way back machine to
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties. Things changed a little bit after World
Speaker 1: War Two and people, I guess the easiest way to
Speaker 1: say is people loosen up a little bit and didn't
Speaker 1: mind certain elements in their entertainment any longer. Yes, A
Speaker 1: big example this article uses Frank Sinatra got an Oscar
Speaker 1: nomination for playing a heroin Addict and the Man with
Speaker 1: a Golden Arm. And that couldn't happen in the nineties. No,
Speaker 1: millions of people hadn't died in World War two yet,
Speaker 1: that's right. I imagine that kind of loosens you up
Speaker 1: as far as the seeing Chris words and stuff in
Speaker 1: movies goes. Yeah, like that's not a big deal, Like
Speaker 1: World War two is a big deal. Get your haunches
Speaker 1: down exactly. That was the that was the big one,
Speaker 1: the big first crack to the Hayes Code. Uh, and
Speaker 1: then there were I think that you said he won
Speaker 1: an oscar, right, Yeah, it was a really good movie,
Speaker 1: and that kind of opened the floodgate, so that by
Speaker 1: the end of the fifties you've got some like a
Speaker 1: hot and Tony Curtis and Jack Lemon are dressed like
Speaker 1: women hitting on Marilyn Monroe and um. At that point,
Speaker 1: it was pretty obvious the Hayes Code was dead. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, they weren't passing the code, but they were
Speaker 1: still getting released. So once something is subverted like that,
Speaker 1: it's it's dead in the water, right, So there was
Speaker 1: a that was fine for a little while. I think
Speaker 1: the Hayes Code just kind of fell to the wayside
Speaker 1: and people were releasing movies without any kind of moral
Speaker 1: or immoral stamp. But the rating system as we understand
Speaker 1: it today hadn't come about yet, so it's kind of
Speaker 1: a limbo period until and a store owner in New
Speaker 1: York with the last name of Ginsburg got busted for
Speaker 1: selling nudy mags to sixteen year old boys, and he
Speaker 1: took it all the way to the Supreme Court saying,
Speaker 1: you can't can't say anything about this there's federal laws
Speaker 1: about obscenity, not local laws in the Supreme Court that
Speaker 1: you know what, we really think it's up the local
Speaker 1: municipalities to decide what they want their miners exposed to
Speaker 1: or not. That got Hollywood's attention because all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: local municipalities could decide whether or not they wanted to
Speaker 1: show movies to minors or not, so that what was
Speaker 1: old became new again. And Jack Valenti, who was in
Speaker 1: charge of the m p a A, said we need
Speaker 1: another system of self another self policing system, and he
Speaker 1: came up with the rating system that that we have today.
Speaker 1: Yeah and he uh, I mean Jack Valenti was the
Speaker 1: head of the NBA for close to forty years, and
Speaker 1: he initially the intention was to stop censorship because he
Speaker 1: feared that the movies were going to start being censored locally.
Speaker 1: And so I think the the origins of the m
Speaker 1: p a's rating system. We're we're arts centered, art center,
Speaker 1: but also money centered, because again, if you have if
Speaker 1: you have town A showing the movie, but Towns B
Speaker 1: through L deciding that the movie is obscene and not
Speaker 1: showing it, then you're losing that money and be through L.
Speaker 1: So what Valenti came up with was this idea that
Speaker 1: let us tell you what is appropriate for minors or
Speaker 1: not what movie is, and we'll just make a simple
Speaker 1: rating system g pg R or X the old X
Speaker 1: and triple X, which wasn't even formally a rating, it
Speaker 1: was just a marketing tool. Yeah. Yeah, because three x's
Speaker 1: that's like whoa. I wonder if anybody ever came out
Speaker 1: with one with four X or double X even yeah,
Speaker 1: like we cut out that one part so X. Uh. Yeah. Christian,
Speaker 1: our colleague here wrote a great blog post about the
Speaker 1: former X rated movie. Is that right? Yeah, let's to
Speaker 1: check that out. It's good for brain stuff, for stuff
Speaker 1: of genius on the brain stuff blog earlier this year.
Speaker 1: And you actually recommended it on your blog the X rating,
Speaker 1: Yeah the best remember this week? Yeah, I remember recommending
Speaker 1: one of his things. I just don't remember that one.
Speaker 1: It's good. I thought about asking him in here, but
Speaker 1: then I thought, yeah, we got it. Um so yeah,
Speaker 1: back then it was G through X and um. Well
Speaker 1: we'll talk about you know how that changed maybe after
Speaker 1: this message break. All right, so no longer do we
Speaker 1: have X rated movies. Now we have something I guess
Speaker 1: we should just go through what these ratings mean today
Speaker 1: in two thousand fourteen. So you've got your G. She's
Speaker 1: always been G. General audience. Anyone can see it. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that's your your family cartoon that kids love and
Speaker 1: parents are forced to go to. Right. Then you've got PG.
Speaker 1: Um that means no drug use. Um, maybe a little violence,
Speaker 1: because as will learn, the m p A has less
Speaker 1: problems with violence and more problems with language and sex.
Speaker 1: Huge criticism, huge criticism. Uh, PG thirteen, which we've you know,
Speaker 1: kind of been through. Um. Then you've got your R
Speaker 1: and that is no one under seven. This is a
Speaker 1: suggestion that no one ever seventeen be admitted without a parent.
Speaker 1: And uh, these aren't laws, though, that's one thing. It's
Speaker 1: supportant to point out those are suggestions. And then theaters
Speaker 1: have policies. Yes, it's let's kind of dig into that.
Speaker 1: So none of this is legally binding. None of them
Speaker 1: are anything more than recommendations. They're basically saying that this
Speaker 1: movie has X amount of profanity or x amount of nudity,
Speaker 1: or lacks any drug use or something like that. And
Speaker 1: so for what the m p a A thinks the
Speaker 1: average moral compass of the average American thinks about these
Speaker 1: different things like sex, drugs, nudity, all that stuff. This
Speaker 1: movie falls into this rating. And again it's not enforceable.
Speaker 1: You don't even need to have a rating to release
Speaker 1: a movie. But if you want to get your movie
Speaker 1: in theaters, there's basically no theater chain out there right now,
Speaker 1: no major theater chain out there right now that will
Speaker 1: show an unrated movie. Yeah, it's a completely voluntary system
Speaker 1: to submit your film to the m p A ratings board.
Speaker 1: But it's de fact though, but you have to do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the rub is that they say it's voluntary, but
Speaker 1: you actually have to pay a fee to submit your
Speaker 1: movie if you ever want to have it shown in theaters,
Speaker 1: right and the fee is anywhere from like twenty five
Speaker 1: dollars for a big budget movie to seven fifty dollars
Speaker 1: for a short um. And so you're you submit your movie. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll get into it in a second. Let's talk some
Speaker 1: more about the rest of the ratings. Yeah, well there's
Speaker 1: only one more and that's n C seventeen, which replaced
Speaker 1: X and that means, uh, this is and it basically
Speaker 1: means that it's for adults on me and you should
Speaker 1: not come in if you're under eighteen, right and also
Speaker 1: means these days as foreign or about lesbian or gays. Exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not fully, but sure it's pretty close. Yeah. Um. And
Speaker 1: NC seventeen. The first movie to come out with that
Speaker 1: was Henry and June. Yeah, not to be confused with
Speaker 1: Benny and June. Uh. And it basically sunk that movie
Speaker 1: because everybody was like, oh, this is X now right
Speaker 1: n C seventeen. If you jumble it all together, it
Speaker 1: looks like X. And the whole reason they came up
Speaker 1: with NC seventeen was to replace X because X was
Speaker 1: associated exclusively with pornography in the minds of movie goers. Yeah, exactly. Um. Alright,
Speaker 1: so let's get into this. The actual ratings board. There's
Speaker 1: the m p a A, and then working for the
Speaker 1: m p A is the Classification and Ratings Administration CARA,
Speaker 1: and uh. CARRA doesn't say whether your movie stinks or not.
Speaker 1: Carras eight to thirteen people, and they're called raiders, and
Speaker 1: they are overseen by senior Raider and they sit down
Speaker 1: and watch these movies and take copious notes on what
Speaker 1: they think based on their standards. Is Uh, I don't
Speaker 1: want to say offensive, but just noteworthy, Like maybe they're
Speaker 1: not offended, but they think the average mom and Sheboygan
Speaker 1: might be offended. Right, supposedly, but which is a kind
Speaker 1: of a thing because the whole rating system, as you
Speaker 1: just kind of pointed out, is a subjective, totally subjective.
Speaker 1: They supposedly. Uh. Here, here's the other rub is it's
Speaker 1: all secret, right. You can you can find out of
Speaker 1: federal judges name and address, but you can't find out
Speaker 1: who a raider is for your films. It's all conducted
Speaker 1: in private. None of the stuff is released. And that's
Speaker 1: one of the big rubs in that documentary and with
Speaker 1: filmmakers in general, is it's all, you know, done behind
Speaker 1: closed doors. There's never any explanations provided. These people are
Speaker 1: supposed to have kids between ages of five and seventeen,
Speaker 1: but many of them do not, right, either have kids
Speaker 1: at all or have kids that are older than eighteen. Um,
Speaker 1: it basically frees them up from any accountability. Yeah, to
Speaker 1: do this all in private and in secrecy. And until
Speaker 1: that movie, um By Kirby, what is Kirby's last name?
Speaker 1: Henry and June No, No, the the documentary, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: this film is not yet right, and yeah when until
Speaker 1: Kirby Dicks, um, this film is not yet rated came out,
Speaker 1: like all of this stuff was just conjection, conjecture and
Speaker 1: Hollywood legend. He was the first one to really basically
Speaker 1: he tailed these people, tailed them to lunch to find
Speaker 1: out who they were and eaves drop on them and
Speaker 1: like did some digging and found like these anonymous people
Speaker 1: did not fall into the requirements that the m p
Speaker 1: A said they did, and so not only was it
Speaker 1: in secret, it was it was fraudulent. Basically, this rating system,
Speaker 1: so according to the standards, you submit your film, this
Speaker 1: group of people, this anonymous group of people, watch it,
Speaker 1: they rate it, and then they come together and vote
Speaker 1: on a rating, and then they passed. There there um
Speaker 1: vote along to a senior rat who talks to the
Speaker 1: movies distributor or director or producer says, here's the rating,
Speaker 1: here's why we rated it like this, and then you
Speaker 1: you're faced with a choice. You can accept the rating.
Speaker 1: You can edit your film as per the uh C
Speaker 1: A r a S recommendations. Take out these bad words,
Speaker 1: cut the sex scene a little early, leave all the violence, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: or you can reject the rating and just release your
Speaker 1: movie is unrated, which, well, you can try to release it,
Speaker 1: but since no one will show it, it's really sort
Speaker 1: of a misnomer, right, But it's because, I mean increasingly
Speaker 1: a thing again, you need the rating to get your
Speaker 1: movie shown in movie theaters. But what happens if you
Speaker 1: don't care if your movie comes out in theaters, video
Speaker 1: on demand, yeah, or just releasing it to the internet. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm curious about that. How that's going to change the landscape. Well,
Speaker 1: right now, it's a huge threat to the m p
Speaker 1: a A because all of the power they wield is
Speaker 1: found in this rating system. And if for theaters, yes,
Speaker 1: if no one's going to theaters, then the m p
Speaker 1: a A A loses all of that power, which is a
Speaker 1: big deal, especially now because the m p A is
Speaker 1: needed more than ever as a lobbying group because of
Speaker 1: online piracy, which we'll talk about some more. So it's
Speaker 1: a very precarious time for the m p A right now,
Speaker 1: and it's a terrible time for them to be under
Speaker 1: as much scrutiny and public attack and critique as they are.
Speaker 1: So it's I mean, they got spears sticking out every
Speaker 1: which way, and their trunk is flailing in their honking.
Speaker 1: That is true. One thing I should point out I
Speaker 1: said it is that there's no accountability. That's what the
Speaker 1: n p A says. It's the good thing about the
Speaker 1: secrecy is that it frees them up. That anonymity does.
Speaker 1: It frees them up from accountability. Um, I just don't agree, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So the uh, if you want to appeal there there
Speaker 1: was apparently a change made in response to Kirby Dick's movie. Um,
Speaker 1: the documentary before if you were appealing your rating, which
Speaker 1: is very difficult. Um, almost never was done and you
Speaker 1: never want that's for sure, right, And when you were appealing,
Speaker 1: you couldn't reference any other film. It was totally done
Speaker 1: in a vacuum, which is pretty preposterous. Yeah, Like that's
Speaker 1: the only way to be able to sell us. Like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, if you said this about this, then
Speaker 1: why not this for my movie? Which meant that there
Speaker 1: was no real standard, yeah that that you could point to,
Speaker 1: or there were standards you could point to, they just
Speaker 1: wouldn't be considered. Yeah, or at the very least, if
Speaker 1: they do have written standards, they don't release them, so
Speaker 1: you don't even know what they are. Right. So, Um,
Speaker 1: the m p a A is Uh, they've got their
Speaker 1: rating system, they've got the appeals process, which was also
Speaker 1: in secret, unless that's changed, right I think. I think
Speaker 1: the appeals board not only was the appeals board and secret,
Speaker 1: but they weren't even just raiders. They were people from
Speaker 1: the industry, right, and the Theater Owners Association exactly, whereas
Speaker 1: the people who were raiders are supposedly unaffiliated with the
Speaker 1: movie industry and are just like average ordinary parents representing uh, Europe,
Speaker 1: Middle America. We'll just call it, even though I think
Speaker 1: that's insulting. The thing is, though, is a lot of
Speaker 1: people criticize the mp A and say, these raiders are
Speaker 1: UM really representing the six major studios who rake in
Speaker 1: the ten point nine billion dollars made in the United
Speaker 1: States UM in theaters alone, just ticket sales, not DVD
Speaker 1: or anything like that. UM. And that's what the m
Speaker 1: p a A does in addition to rating. They are,
Speaker 1: like we said, the lobby arm for these six studios,
Speaker 1: that's right, And they I guess we should talk about
Speaker 1: piracy now, huh. That's one of their other big besides
Speaker 1: from rating movies, they are heavy in the lobby against
Speaker 1: UM well, especially now with online piracy because the digital
Speaker 1: distribution network is uh, it seems like the way forward
Speaker 1: as far as distribution goes, right, Like it's the future.
Speaker 1: It's not the future, it's the present and the future.
Speaker 1: And the m p A has a they're accused of
Speaker 1: UM basically trying to quell new technology. Yeah, by just
Speaker 1: saying like, well, let's just keep people from peer to
Speaker 1: peer file sharing in total so that they can't steal movies.
Speaker 1: In part UM and if you go back to the
Speaker 1: early eighties, Jack Valenti was known to have UM railed
Speaker 1: and lobbied against the legality of VCRs. UM people are
Speaker 1: just gonna be recording things and handing them out to
Speaker 1: their friends exactly, So there was a The n p
Speaker 1: A is a long history of basically like just doing
Speaker 1: anything at Canada stifle innovation in order to protect the
Speaker 1: profits of these big movie studios. The other problem with
Speaker 1: them lobbying UM in favor of the six movie studios
Speaker 1: is that they inherently have a conflict of interest against
Speaker 1: the studios that are not part of these six that
Speaker 1: they represent, but whose movies they still rate. So they've
Speaker 1: been accused of UM more scrupulously or scrutinously rating the
Speaker 1: movies of rival studios or foreign studios when assigning a rating. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's why filmmakers call consistently for transparency. It's it's
Speaker 1: I don't think there are many filmmakers out there saying
Speaker 1: there should be no rating, we should just maybe some
Speaker 1: like a large Fontier, you know, verna Hertzog. They're probably
Speaker 1: no way things at all, But I think they just
Speaker 1: want transparency, like open it up and let everyone know
Speaker 1: how this is all done, who these people are, and
Speaker 1: give us an idea on what in the world we're
Speaker 1: submitting to voluntarily, quote unquote. Pretty interesting. So you were
Speaker 1: talking about online piracy um and with digital distribution being
Speaker 1: a big deal now, the m p AS needed more
Speaker 1: than ever because they have to lobby Congress to fight
Speaker 1: online piracy at a time when more and more people
Speaker 1: are distributing online and going around the m p a A.
Speaker 1: So it's losing its power, but it needs its power
Speaker 1: more than ever. So, like we said, it's a precarious
Speaker 1: time for the m p a A. And they tried
Speaker 1: a few things. They were successful with the uh what
Speaker 1: was the first one in two thousand, the Digital No
Speaker 1: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which basically that up until
Speaker 1: then it wasn't a federal crime to share movies on
Speaker 1: peer to peer networks. That one did it, and they
Speaker 1: got that passed. The m p a A lobbied and
Speaker 1: got that passed. They've cracked out on camcorder recording, yea.
Speaker 1: Like when you're in New York City and someone has
Speaker 1: a brand new copy of Godzilla on a video cassette
Speaker 1: for you, it's because, if you've seen Seinfeld, someone went
Speaker 1: and set in that theater with a camera recorder and
Speaker 1: just made a stupid, awful quality pirated version. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it says that those are the most common. I guess
Speaker 1: I kind of believe that they're also the worst quality.
Speaker 1: Like sometimes people will like get up and move in
Speaker 1: front of the camera, like to go to the bathroom
Speaker 1: or something, and yeah, it's I've never seen one, but
Speaker 1: I think they're terrible. Um much. I don't want to say.
Speaker 1: More common, but probably more common these days are like
Speaker 1: copies of screeners, Like they send out DVDs to everybody
Speaker 1: who's members of the Academy to vote on move these
Speaker 1: and so. Around Oscar time or before Oscar time, it
Speaker 1: seems like the Internet gets flooded with way more high
Speaker 1: quality copies of these major movies that are up for awards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think now they have, um, thanks to the n
Speaker 1: p A, have something coded to your name now on
Speaker 1: your copy, so like they'll know who leaked it or whatever.
Speaker 1: I think so, but I'm not surprised by that. Um. Apparently,
Speaker 1: if you want to show uh Frozen at your church, yeah,
Speaker 1: you better have a public performance license because it is
Speaker 1: illegal to show a movie outside of your home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that surprised me. But there are a lot of especially
Speaker 1: in the summertime, a lot of community screenings, like every
Speaker 1: city now has uh. You know, Atlanta shows them in uh.
Speaker 1: I think at Oakland Cemetery, some other places in New York.
Speaker 1: They have them all over the place. And technically, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're supposed to have a license to do so, I'm
Speaker 1: sure they do the big ones. Yeah, the big ones,
Speaker 1: I'm sure due. But like at your COMMUNNY pool when
Speaker 1: you want to show E T and Uh, the Feds
Speaker 1: could come kick the gate down around the pool. I
Speaker 1: bet they don't love HBO these days because you know,
Speaker 1: HBO go um people steal that. They're just like, hey, dude,
Speaker 1: what's your log in? And HBO came out and there, like,
Speaker 1: who cares people are watching it? Yeah, go watch a
Speaker 1: True Detective. Maybe you'll sign up for HBO because you
Speaker 1: liked it, or maybe you'll just support the show period
Speaker 1: on social media, even though you're getting it for free.
Speaker 1: Like we're making enough money basically, yes, And that's something
Speaker 1: that a lot of people say, you know, film industry,
Speaker 1: we don't really feel that bad for you, Sean Austin
Speaker 1: sit down, because you guys made ten point nine billion
Speaker 1: dollars in America in ticket sales alone in two thousand thirteen.
Speaker 1: We don't feel that bad about this whole conundrum that
Speaker 1: the m p a a Is facing here the voices
Speaker 1: or yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, I don't think I knew that.
Speaker 1: Yeah he was. I can't remember that. There was like
Speaker 1: a whole um kind of push an anti piracy pushed
Speaker 1: a few years back, and he was the face of it,
Speaker 1: part of it. Yeah, and he looked really mad about
Speaker 1: things too. But um, speaking of piracy, I remember there
Speaker 1: was a story that came out recently. It was if
Speaker 1: you think about it at first, it's like wow wow,
Speaker 1: But then if if you really kind of lend lended
Speaker 1: some thought, it's really disturbing. Um, there were there was
Speaker 1: a report of prisoners at a prison being shown pirated movies,
Speaker 1: and some of the prisoners were there for pirating movies,
Speaker 1: and I like, really think about the injustice behind that, Like,
Speaker 1: that's just crazy town. Imagine if you've been like selling
Speaker 1: counterfeit first and you go to prison and all of
Speaker 1: the all the guards are wearing counterfeit for co would
Speaker 1: be pretty swing in prison. It would be weird, but
Speaker 1: it would also be unjust. Yeah, yeah, true. But in
Speaker 1: relation to this is just more and more widespread every day.
Speaker 1: It feels like it's it's a losing battle. I think
Speaker 1: that the m p A is fighting right now. Well,
Speaker 1: I think I read somewhere today that they think they
Speaker 1: might release a few of the Raiders names per film,
Speaker 1: not all like thirteen. But I need to look up that.
Speaker 1: Look that up again, because that I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't see the while releasing a three out of thirteen names,
Speaker 1: does anybody any good? It does zero good? Uh? And
Speaker 1: speaking of doing zero good? Um, the this there's kind
Speaker 1: of a new attachment to the rating system that they
Speaker 1: have now. It's called check the box, and um it's
Speaker 1: it's basically a brief description of why a movie is
Speaker 1: like PG. Thirteen, so it'll say like intense sci fi
Speaker 1: action or something like that, or yeah, that kind of thing. Um.
Speaker 1: And some critics of the m p a A say
Speaker 1: it's just basically like shooting a laser beam into like
Speaker 1: a fifteen year old boy's brain, like brief nudity. Come
Speaker 1: see it PG thirteen. Check that out, kid, Um. And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are looking at it
Speaker 1: like it's it's just kind of a disingenuous advertisement, cynical advertisement,
Speaker 1: because the the m p a A is accused of
Speaker 1: not regulating or even potentially directly marketing to kids under
Speaker 1: the age of the movies that are being advertised. So
Speaker 1: like you're seeing a lot of ads for like R
Speaker 1: rated movies on websites that are like very popular among
Speaker 1: like the seventeen and undercrowd. Um, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: tie ins for PG thirteen movies with like kids toys
Speaker 1: for kids who are under who are under thirteen. Um.
Speaker 1: And so there's like this idea that there's the m
Speaker 1: p a A is supposedly serving America's moral moral compasses,
Speaker 1: but really at the same time they're undermining that morality
Speaker 1: that they're supposedly defending. By marketing and exploiting kids. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that'd be like a cigarette company having a cartoon animal
Speaker 1: as their mascot. Can you imagine the weird? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: one thing about the the subjectivity of it and the
Speaker 1: fact that it is a closed book, and they filmmakers
Speaker 1: and even know, you know what, how to tailor their
Speaker 1: movie to achieve a certain rating, I mean to within
Speaker 1: a certain degree. But they've learned how to manipulate it
Speaker 1: because there is no set standard by if you watch
Speaker 1: that film is not irrated. And you've heard plenty of
Speaker 1: stories over the years about filmmakers intentionally putting in things
Speaker 1: that they never intend to be in the final movie
Speaker 1: just to sort of distract from some of the other things.
Speaker 1: So they'll shoot something kind of really outrageous, uh, to
Speaker 1: get the m p A's Raiders haunches up and what
Speaker 1: they were never going to keep that part anyway. So
Speaker 1: they're subverting the system because there is no set standard,
Speaker 1: and they're just the stuff they want to keep in
Speaker 1: is comparatively exactly more palatable. And if you don't have
Speaker 1: the set standard, where you can go and I wonder
Speaker 1: what those sheets look like on the interior, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean that's the great mystery. Surely they have their
Speaker 1: own interior standards. They're not just like watch it and
Speaker 1: see what you think. Well, they have group discussions. To man,
Speaker 1: I'd love to sit out on those, so the uh
Speaker 1: I read. Another criticism of the m p A is
Speaker 1: that the difference between PG thirteen movies and our movies
Speaker 1: these days is the profanity and the sexuality. Um, that
Speaker 1: they're similar in violence, if not more violent in PG
Speaker 1: thirteen movies, and that this is kind of messed up
Speaker 1: that the m p a A has very little problem
Speaker 1: with violence, but when it comes to bad words or
Speaker 1: sexuality of almost any nature except for women being objectified
Speaker 1: and men being gratified. Um, then the m p a
Speaker 1: A suddenly puckers up. Well, yeah, and any a woman
Speaker 1: a cheating receiving sexual gratification or homosexual couple n Yeah,
Speaker 1: virtually like guaranteed or depending on how they do it,
Speaker 1: are if it's coming out of like one of the
Speaker 1: major studios. So in other words, a man can receive
Speaker 1: pleasure from a woman, and of course it's scrutinized somewhat,
Speaker 1: because any kind of sex is more heavily scrutinized than violence.
Speaker 1: But if a woman does like you said, or if
Speaker 1: it's a gay couple, it's all over so homophobic, misogynistic,
Speaker 1: do you decide right? And um fetishistic of violence, you know, yeah.
Speaker 1: Like here's one example. There's a great article called don't
Speaker 1: expect any major changes to the n p A rating System,
Speaker 1: and it's basically Chris Dodd, who's the new head and
Speaker 1: the gang, digging in and saying, you know what, we
Speaker 1: talked to your average parents and we pull them and
Speaker 1: this is what they want. Um. But they released none
Speaker 1: of those studies released, none of those conversations released. Um.
Speaker 1: A movie like Filomena, which you saw, was rated to
Speaker 1: our Yeah. It was about a lady looking for a
Speaker 1: long lost son. It was so far from an our movie.
Speaker 1: It was ridiculous. Yeah. But it had a couple of
Speaker 1: F bombs in it. Um, So they cut those out
Speaker 1: and they bring it to a PG thirteen. You might think,
Speaker 1: who cares cut up the F bombs make it PG thirteen.
Speaker 1: But there's something bigger going on here, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a great A V Club article about, um, how
Speaker 1: just totally out of step. A lot of the ratings
Speaker 1: are and they have fifteen movies listed and basically talk
Speaker 1: about their ratings. Um, like the first one they talk
Speaker 1: about once that romantic. Um, it wasn't like a romantic comedy, wasn't. No,
Speaker 1: I would say it was a sweet just a modern
Speaker 1: day romance told through music. It wasn't a musical, but
Speaker 1: there are a lot of musical numbers. Highly inoffensive love story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very sweet movie. Uh, it had the same rating as
Speaker 1: hostile to just basically torture porn. They both got the
Speaker 1: same rating. Yeah should we should read this first line
Speaker 1: from the A B Club. In early summer of two
Speaker 1: thousand seven, two films were released with R ratings. One
Speaker 1: featured a scene where a naked woman is suspended from
Speaker 1: a ceiling while another naked woman slashes her with a
Speaker 1: scythe and base in her blood. The other featured to
Speaker 1: Dublin musicians singing songs together, falling in love and opting
Speaker 1: not to act on it, like there was never any
Speaker 1: sex scene. They didn't even get together. Really. They're both rated.
Speaker 1: Are both rated are because of profanity Rushmore rated R
Speaker 1: for the scene at the end whether Max is putting
Speaker 1: on the play the Vietnam play, and there is a
Speaker 1: shot of a couple of little kids looking at on
Speaker 1: on the set. There's some Playboy centerfolds up in the
Speaker 1: locker like on the Vietnam set, and these it shows
Speaker 1: these little kids like looking at those like a twelve
Speaker 1: year old would probably do an for that, got an
Speaker 1: R for that happiness. Todd Solins one of my favorite
Speaker 1: movies of all time. Yeah. Uh, they tried to give
Speaker 1: it an n C seventeen rating, and he said, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm not cutting anything. You can just go
Speaker 1: take a long walk off a short pier, is what
Speaker 1: I think he famously said to them. And uh, he
Speaker 1: released his movie as unrated. Really, yep, I don't think
Speaker 1: I knew that the way to go, Todd Solins. Or
Speaker 1: if you're looking at some serious homophobia, um, the great
Speaker 1: N nine movie A Longtime Companion features no real sex
Speaker 1: acts at all, nothing explicit. Um. In fact, the A
Speaker 1: B Club says it could show on network TV today
Speaker 1: with just a few alterations. Um, but it was about
Speaker 1: a gay couple and uh so I got an n
Speaker 1: C seventeen. Yeah. There's something called Afternoon Delight, which was
Speaker 1: a um a movie about a woman who hires a
Speaker 1: gigelow and apparently is heavy on the The woman receiving
Speaker 1: sexual gratification. It got an R rating despite and it
Speaker 1: got an R rating after apparently the director cut a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff out and the director said, what the
Speaker 1: hey after um Wolf of Wall Street came out, like
Speaker 1: have you seen this movie with like some very graphic
Speaker 1: apparent sex scenes between a man and a woman. But
Speaker 1: Leonardo DiCaprio is the one enjoying it the most, So
Speaker 1: it's fine. It's an our, right, blue is the warmest color. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Last year that a teenage lesbian love story and got
Speaker 1: a lot of attention, And there were some theaters that allowed, uh,
Speaker 1: high school age kids to go see that anyway, because again,
Speaker 1: this is in law, it's not binding. It's up to
Speaker 1: the theaters. Yeah, it's just so strange that such a
Speaker 1: small group of people have such influence on such a
Speaker 1: large industry. And yeah, the more you dig into it,
Speaker 1: the more conflicts of interest arise, and the more r
Speaker 1: trary the standards become, the more blood boiling it is.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend you go read some stuff like rated
Speaker 1: R for ridiculous by Kirby Dick his Little uh his
Speaker 1: Little um op ed about the m P A a
Speaker 1: UM that one u s news and World Report article
Speaker 1: you wrote or suggested was good. I wish I wrote
Speaker 1: it had you been Uh, there would have been used correctly.
Speaker 1: How did they misuse it? What? Yeah, I know, and
Speaker 1: that's terrible. Uh So the mp A will defend themselves
Speaker 1: and they say that there's no such bias and that
Speaker 1: we all these objectionable scenes are rated on the graphic
Speaker 1: quality and how graphic it is. Um But if you
Speaker 1: just look at the you'd have to be a dummy
Speaker 1: nut to see these correlations. And the fact that they
Speaker 1: don't seem to care that much about violence in this
Speaker 1: age where I don't know, does it influence people to
Speaker 1: go shoot up a school? Who knows? Did you see
Speaker 1: that John Oliver quote that's a going around, Yes, but
Speaker 1: what was it? It's like somebody unsuccessfully tries to carry
Speaker 1: a bomb onto a plane in their shoe. We all
Speaker 1: take our shoes off. There's like thirty something school shootings
Speaker 1: after Columbine and absolutely nothing's changed. Or the onion article
Speaker 1: that's going around two now is this is something that
Speaker 1: can't be prevented, says the only country where this kind
Speaker 1: of thing happens all the time, something like that. I'm paraphrasing. Oh, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the onion. Yeah, good stuff. Np A. Keep keep
Speaker 1: doing the fighting, the good fight. Yeah good check out, Like,
Speaker 1: just go start reading up on it. It's funny how
Speaker 1: much we just take this stuff for granted, but when
Speaker 1: just start digging just slightly beneath the surface at the
Speaker 1: very least. See this film is not yet rated. It's
Speaker 1: really good, um, really engrossing. And you know, for every
Speaker 1: hundred documentaries that come out, what five of them are
Speaker 1: like really great? Most of them are pretty good Summer terror. Well,
Speaker 1: so any really good one is worth seeing just in
Speaker 1: and of itself. Agreed. Uh. If you want to learn
Speaker 1: more about the m p a A, type those letters
Speaker 1: into the search part house to works dot Com and
Speaker 1: I said, search parts, it's time for listener mail. Uh.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this wild Parrots um. Josh mentioned in
Speaker 1: the Tattoo podcasts that he had heard parrots like to
Speaker 1: hang together wind free, and I wanted to burst in
Speaker 1: the podcast booth and tell you about the wild parrots
Speaker 1: of San Francisco. I'm not gonna get into it except
Speaker 1: to say that over the course of my life, the
Speaker 1: parrots in San Francisco were sort of living legend that
Speaker 1: one would occasionally get the privilege of spotting now and then. However,
Speaker 1: about three years ago, I moved in with my aunt
Speaker 1: in the little San Francisco suburb of Brisbane, and apparently
Speaker 1: the famous flocks of parrots were also making their home there.
Speaker 1: Since it was warmer unless windy. Uh, these parrots were
Speaker 1: often hanging right outside my bedroom window, which is pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: I don't know, she says, amusing. I say it's amazing,
Speaker 1: but also somewhat annoying, especially since my first son was
Speaker 1: just a little guy then and a very light sleeper.
Speaker 1: And these suckers are loud, That is true, they are
Speaker 1: very loud. Also, guys, I'm sending you the link to
Speaker 1: watch the preview of the two thousand three documentary The
Speaker 1: Wild Parents of Telegraph Hill. So I didn't know there
Speaker 1: was a documentary. I've heard that. I've heard of that before,
Speaker 1: I never knew what it was about. Amy. I will
Speaker 1: check that out. Thank you, thank you for writing it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Amy. Uh. If you have a documentary recommendation,
Speaker 1: we are always interested in those. Yeah. You can tweet
Speaker 1: them to us a s Y s K podcast. You
Speaker 1: can post them on Facebook dot com, slash stuff. You
Speaker 1: should know uh, And you can send us an email
Speaker 1: to Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and
Speaker 1: has always joined us at our home on the web,
Speaker 1: the Beautiful Stuff You Should Know dot com. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com.