Do we really need the MPAA? I mean seriously....

sure, i am not a parent and i know that the MPAA is supposed to help parents decide for their children and manage their movie-watching behavior without having to go and watch 25 movies first. Maybe if i was a parent and my kids were asking me if they could go to a movie and i had to decide what i thought was appropriate for them at their age, i might think about it differently.


I just think it is a bit ridiculous to have this system in general. i mean, a group of people deciding what the public should and should not see? hmm interesting implications...need to be careful with that one.

the MPAA can say that all they are trying to do is inform parents all they want, but this system makes it impossible to create a movie and sell it without submitting yourself, your creativity, and your artistic liberty to the scrutiny of a group of analysts. i think this imperfect system which we rely on so heavily is partially to blame for the confusion and uproar over the fourth Harry Potter movie and its rating. Do I think the MPAA got it right? yes. that movie was definitely not G or PG according to what I think the MPAA is basing their decisions on (but honestly who knows what they are basing it on? doesnt seem too consistent). But parents were upset, but didnt know who to be upset at. was it the studio and the director who had made the movie more "adult" when the books and movies were supposed to be targeted to children (although i would have said the average age in the theatre i went to was 18-20). or should they be upset at the MPAA for confusing them and making their lives harder. Maybe the MPAA was being too harsh on the movie just because Harry is growing up and they want to make the movie sound more appealing to an older crowd. How many 18 year olds are going to want to watch a PG movie? PG-13, maybe. So i think there is a lot more going on here, a lot of power politics in Hollywood that all has the MPAA at the center of it.

finally someone has come out with a film that challenges the rating system itself. a production, which internally ridicules the very system and means for that production. Kinda like Wordplay by Jason Mraz. (if you dont know what i am talking about, you need to start listening to those lyrics, which you sing along with, coming from Z104 on your car radio)

the MPAA is to film as FEMA is to our personal freedom and safety.

there, I said it.


any and all comments or responses are welcome at boofydb@yahoo.com