See no Evil
We featured a trailer for the documentary Bully here yesterday. A film everyone should see: teachers, parents, politicians and, of course, kids. Kids are the ones being bullied and most often kids are the ones bullying. Kids may not be able to change the world but they can be a vital and very important part in the fight against bullying. Kids need to be reached about this topic.
Alas the MPAA, the Motion Picture Association of America, disagrees. The MPAA is the organisation that, when it’s not busy writing censorship laws both for the USA and other countries, is rating films to help parents decide if a film is appropriate for their kids. The problem is: These people are nuts. They’re not only thinking seeing someone naked in a film will harm a teenager more than watching people blowing each other’s brains out, they also believe that “harsh language” a.k.a. swearing in a film means it’s not safe to be watched by anyone under 18.
Obviously a film about bullying contains some not-so-nice words. That’s what bullies do after all: not being nice and gentle. But rather than facing the problem by showing kids (and everyone else) what is happening in schools every day, what is driving kids into suicide, the MPAA deemed the film Bully to be to harsh for teenagers and rated it R (“restricted” which means 18+). This means many students won’t be able to see the film, many schools won’t show it as they planned to before the rating was published.
Reuters has more about this, thanks to Wonderphile for the heads up.
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about 1 year ago
The movie rating system was intended to be a baseline upon which informed parents could determine whether or not specific content is appropriate for their children. What has happened however, is that many parents have abrogated that responsibility, preferring to leave the decision in the hands of an organization that must, by its very nature, yield to the path of least resistance. When such important decisions are left to somebody else, bad results are almost always guaranteed.
about 1 year ago
Very well stated.
about 1 year ago
I am yet to understand why Fuck You by Cee-Lo Green is age restricted on youtube…
This fake moralism against swear words is something I can’t understand as a Brazilian…
about 1 year ago
yet one more reason to despise the MPAA
i will be joining the month-long boycott “black march 2012″ against the MPAA and other giant media organizations http://blackmarch.me/en/language/
about 1 year ago
Send nastygrams to MPAA by email: [email protected].
about 1 year ago
I tried to look for an e-mail address for the MPAA but they are so stick in the mud out of date that they didn’t even had one. We should all write the chairman Chris Dodd telling him how silly his organisation looks doing this.
Check out
http://www.mpaa.org/
for contact details
about 1 year ago
Yep you can see the evil that is the elite. Protecting their money over life.
Looking forward to the end. Not a thing can be done to educate or battle them.
about 1 year ago
These guys that rate films are incredible… they should know that kids don’t learn to swear from Movies, but from school, by hanging out with friends etc.. and if you hear some of them and can’t even get how they made that swear word up :))
about 1 year ago
“The problem is: These people are nuts.”
Not only is that true, I’ll amend that and state this: Those people (MPAA) are religious nuts — if it doesn’t conform to their “bible morality” then it’s not for anyone under 18/17/15 etc.
It’s insane to have movies, etc with teens in them and then outlaw the very people that need to see these movies.
about 1 year ago
The R-rating doesn’t mean that the film is forbidden to children under 18. It means that underage children must have an adult guardian with them while watching the film.
From MPAA’s website: “R — Restricted. Children Under 17 Require Accompanying Parent or Adult Guardian. [---] Children under 17 are not allowed to attend R-rated motion pictures unaccompanied by a parent or adult guardian. Parents are strongly urged to find out more about R-rated motion pictures in determining their suitability for their children.”
about 1 year ago
It also means that it won’t be shown in many schools because most schools don’t show R-rated films in general.
about 1 year ago
The article mainly criticises MPAA’s actions, it’s a whole different matter with schools’ own policies. No school is prohibited from showing the film to their students directly by MPAA, it’s up to the schools if they want to do so.
about 1 year ago
Actually, that’s not accurate. Major motion pictures and indie flicks as well, have rigid copyright protection. They can’t be shown in schools period, unless they are allowed to for educational purposes only. It’s a permission thing through the movie’s production company (the actual owners of the film) and has to be in writing. You could also pay for the privilege and in many cases, pay dearly. So you can’t show a “R” film in a public school unless it’s been released for educational purposes AND parents have to sign permission slips to allow student to see”R” rated movies.
about 1 year ago
From the website of U.S. Copyright Office (about showing movies in classrooms):
“It is not necessary to obtain permission if you show the movie in the course of “face-to-face teaching activities” in a nonprofit educational institution, in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction, if the copy of the movie being performed is a lawful copy. 17 U.S.C. § 110(1).”
Then again if the movie is shown for entertainment purposes, the necessary licenses are obviously needed.
about 1 year ago
We’ve done this…trust me. You have to get approval from the production house that owns the movie-generally, if the movie has been shown across country in theaters (not ‘art’ theaters). Some schools just take the risk; it’s pretty slight and far fetched that the film owners will come after you. But if you have to deal with legal eagles in all things, they will give a definite NO to this practice of showing copyrighted movies (without permission). It even states this in most movies at the end of the credits.
about 1 year ago
And how many parents do you know who would be willing or of their own desire to go to an R-rated movie (particularly if it contained “sexual content,” i.e., nudity) along with their under-17yo child?
Many years ago, one of the mainstream movies, Midnight Cowboy received an X-rating. Today, it would be lucky to get an R-rating. All because of one scene in a movie theater that you couldn’t even see what was going on.
about 1 year ago
That I’m sure is correct and I’m also sure that many children wouldn’t be any more willful to go to R-rated movies with their parents either.
I was just trying to say that if you read Josh’s article neutrally you can perhaps see some exaggeration and even plain false information. I’m not intending to criticise anyone’s opinions but it irritates me when government institutions (MPAA, to my knowledge, isn’t even among these) are misleadingly accused of something they don’t have influence on.
about 1 year ago
The MMPA and it’s rating system is a sad joke and this decision proves it. You can stand outside any middle school or high school and hear all manner of slurs and swearing and yet this board rates an important film, that contains the language framed in a responsible presentation, R. This sad decision means that the kids using the language to bully can’t see the film and see the harm they’re causing- ridiculous!
about 1 year ago
The MPAA actually has two members of the clergy on its panel. One Catholic and one Protestant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Film_Is_Not_Yet_Rated
about 1 year ago
If you want to understand the MPAA and their basically covert operation….see the movie; “This Film is Not Yet Rated.”
It goes into who they are, how they are picked, their tenure in the positions etc. It’s a real eye opener for a process long ago fossilized; when the powers at be censored everything in the US. This is the last vestiges of that system still in power today.
Gay themed films in the past almost always got an automatic NC-17 rating….no matter what was shown….because as we all know homosexuality is a sin and the lifestyle of the dangerous, social deviant. All indie gay themed films got the NC-17 stigma….gay themed mainstream films struggled as well but if they had big named actors like Tom Hanks, they pulled through with a better rating. Incidentally, the movie itself, “This Film is Not Yet Rated” got the dreaded NC-17 rating.
about 1 year ago
Can someone start an online petition to change this rating so schools will show it? I’m only suggesting, because I think someone on this board is probably better at setting it up than I am. thanks.
about 1 year ago
I don’t see why a parent shouldn’t watch this film with their child.After all that what parents are for.They should know what their child has to deal with and the child should know that his parents do care. If parents took the time to talk with their child and show hem or her that they do care what goes on in their childs life. Of coures you do have some parents that believe that once that have pop their kid out of the womb that it is up to the Goverment to deal with this kid.When it comes to swearing and how do these kids pick it up,I’ve seen mothers teach their kids some very good swear words.The goverment just put out some very enlighting numbers on unmarried mothers.43 percent of births are to unwed moms.72 percent come from unwed black mothers.It’s come to the point where children are having children.It’s not working. I don’t think a film on bullying would really help that much.Most likely it is going to put ideas in the bullies head,thus making him feel very important.I don’t feel that it’s going to make them change there ways.Lots of times it takes a bigger kid to kick the bully around before they see the light.Treating bullies with Jimmy Carter gloves is going to do nothing to change the bullies way of life.Lots of times the bully is bully at home be an ass of a parent,but that’s a whole different ball game.These are just my thoughts.The handbook on kids that I have just doesn’t cover bulling.
about 1 year ago
Unmarried mothers are not necessarily ‘kids’. If you check the average age of marriage – and the number who don’t marry at all – you will find that some of these ‘kids’ are in their 40s :) It’s been a long time since most women married at 18-21, and even longer since all women believed that they needed a man to be responsible for them before they could have kids. I am not sure of the figures in the US, but in Australia the average age when someone leaves home is now 29, most will never marry, and of those who do, 80% are already living together before marriage. I suspect even more are spending a few nights together. I couldn’t find the figures when I made a quick search, but last I looked the majority of ‘unwed mothers’ were over 21 and in some sort of relationship. Totally off-topic, but if we want marriage to remain respectable, it really does look like we NEED gay marriage :)
As for bullies – totally nonPC, but the old method of getting your older brother/cousin/friend to have a ‘friendly word’ with him somewhere out of sight of adults still seems like a good idea to me. That could be an unenlightened, primitive idea, but as most of my ancestors were ‘primitive’ I feel entitled to hold it.
about 1 year ago
‘R’ “….must be accompanied by a parent [[or]] guardian.” Young adults have been getting around this forever by just bring along someone 18yrs or older with them to see the movie. If a theater does check, it never goes any further than that. In public schools however, it has been a bit more formal; permission slips and the teacher is the ‘guardian’ or en loco parentis.
about 1 year ago
I’ve created a facebook page in an attempt to rally the community around changing the MPAA’s mind. I plan to post contact information, stock letters, MPAA political contacts, etc. so the we can mobilize and get this film a fair representation.
about 1 year ago
I’ve created a facebook page in an attempt to rally the community around changing the MPAA’s mind. I plan to post contact information, stock letters, MPAA political contacts, etc. so the we can mobilize and get this film a fair representation. The page’s title is “MPAA is a Bully”. Please join and show your support.
about 1 year ago
Good luck with that…many people and organizations have tried to take on the MPAA. It’s almost like a fight with the Masons. For whatever reasons its so entrenched, it remains.
about 1 year ago
ounger women who give birth are substantially more likely than oldre womento do so outside of marriage.In 2008 the great majority of teenage births were to unmarried young women[99 percent for teens under age 15,and 86 percent for 15 to 19-year olds.]compared 61 percent of births to women ages 20 to 24,one-third for women ages 25 to 29,and 18 to 20 percent for women in their thirties.
about 1 year ago
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0242193/parentalguide
umm excuse me but the reason why it can’t be shown IS BECAUSE IT SHOWS SOMEONES COCK IN PLAIN VIEW
about 1 year ago
You are looking at the wrong movie buddy. The film you are referencing is a 2001 fictional film. Here is the link to the 2011 documentary.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1682181/
Simple mistake. But more to the point, even the MPAA admits that the film only gets an R rating because of a few curse words. The fact is that the appeal was lost by only one vote. My point is that I agree with the MPAA’s logic. I wouldn’t want to expose children to that kind of language and violence. But unfortunately this is real footage, and not fiction. They are exposed to it everyday. If the MPAA truly wanted to prevent exposing kids to that stuff then they should do something to pro-actively end bullying rather than impede on other people’s efforts to.
about 1 year ago
A wild petition has appeared
http://www.change.org/petitions/mpaa-don-t-let-the-bullies-win-give-bully-a-pg-13-instead-of-an-r-rating
about 1 year ago
A wild petition has appeared. and its doing rather well even with some big name signatories
http://www.change.org/petitions/mpaa-don-t-let-the-bullies-win-give-bully-a-pg-13-instead-of-an-r-rating