The other day my friend posted this on his blog:
Proof the Rating System is Broken: Slumdog Millionaire, in which a boy overcomes adversity to try and connect with the love of his life--rated R. Taken--in which Liam Neeson promises to hunt down and murder the people who kidnapped his daughter (and then proceeds to do so)--rated PG13. Seriously people.I have thought for a very long time that the Motion Pictures Association of America's ratings were, to put it mildly, stupid. I made a comment on that blog post and, since I had no intention of seeing Taken, figured I had said my peace. I didn't pay attention to the MPAA ratings before and wouldn't start worrying about them now.
But then we saw Taken last weekend. (Michelle thought it looked interesting.) It was pretty good as an action flick—who knew Liam Neeson could be so Jason-Bournesque?
The whole time I was watching it, I couldn't help think of the comparison quoted above. Having seen Slumdog Millionaire, I quite agree with Joel's assessment. That movie is tremendous. But I have an even better comparison: Frost/Nixon.
Here we go—Taken v. Frost/Nixon.
Taken is rated PG-13. The movie is about how a former CIA agent's daughter is kidnapped while vacationing in Paris. (That much you already know from the trailers; skip to the Frost/Nixon section if you don't want to know the rest of the plot because you're still planning to see it.) She is on the phone with Daddy Dearest (Liam Neeson) when she is abducted and he puts his considerable skills to work to track down the culprits so he can take out vengeance on them for not releasing his daughter. He also wants to get his daughter back. In the process he kills numerous people—shooting them from afar, up close, killing them with his hands, or with whatever is available. One killing is particularly brutal. He
Oh, and did I mention where his daughter is? She's been abducted so she can be sold as a sex-slave. She will bring an extra high price because she is a virgin. Her friend wasn't so lucky. She was chained to a bed after being drugged. She died from asphyxiating on her own vomit. And we got to see that up close. So, when Mr. Action CIA catches up to his daughter she (a high school age girl) is on display in a scanty bikini for men to bid on her. In the final scene she is held hostage by the sole survivor on a yacht (Mr. Former CIA has decimated everyone on board, leaving a trail of carnage) holds the daughter at knife point and Mr. Action Hero takes on last shot, taking him down with a bullet between the eyes.
Charming movie. Just the thing you'd like your 13-year old daughter to walk in and see with her friends.
Now, for Frost/Nixon. This movie is based on the true story of how David Frost interviewed Richard Nixon in 1977 on national television. These became the most watched interviews in TV history and, in the end, revealed a great deal about Nixon's motives and personality, especially with regard to Watergate.
Frank Langella, as Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th president of the United States of America, says at one point in the movie, "Those motherfuckers!"
Yep. That's it.
That's why Frost/Nixon was rated R, which means you have to either be 17 or accompanied by an adult to see it. The MPAA's web site states that it is, "Rated R for some language." In addition to President Nixon's emphatic epithet, there might have been a few "shits," "damns," and "hells" (which are all allowed in PG-13 movies anyway). But guess what. Nixon was famously foul-mouthed. Moreover, this is how lots of people around him spoke. The language isn't gratuitous. There is no violence, no nudity, nothing. The raunchiest it gets is when Nixon leans over to Frost just before one of the taping sessions is about to begin and says, "Do any fornicating last night?" to take his interrogator off his game.
Why does this even matter? Frost/Nixon is the kind of movie that should be accessible to a wide audience. Maybe teens, hungry for an understanding of the past, would rush in to see it. OK, maybe not. But why cut off access to it for a few words that are not used gratuitously (and not even used that often)? Is there something to be learned from this movie? Are there parallels between Nixon's rationale for escalating the Vietnam War and Bush's rationale for the Iraq War? Are there similarities between Nixon and Bush in how they governed? Maybe, maybe not. But you can't even start the discussion if you can't see the film. At the very least, the film depicts an important part of American history.
In the documentary, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, director Michael Tucker is interviewed (who made the documentary Gunner Palace about the Iraq War), and asks how we could even "rate" images from real life. From wars, for example, we get such horrific visuals as piles of bodies in Nazi Holocaust camps or a little girl running naked from her burned village in Vietnam. He asks, "Is that PG? Is that PG-13? Is it R? People needed to see that... You can't rate reality."
This Film is Not Yet Rated, by the way, does a great job of showing what a farce the MPAA is, how many double-standards it has, and how the ratings are not based on much more than a gut reaction by amateurs, hired to speak for the "average parent" (even though most of the raters' "kids" are adults). It is basically a censorship organization, under the thumb of the major studios.
So, if I were to rate these movies, I would give Taken a rating of NC-17. I really see no reason a kid under that age needs to see 50+ murders, a man electrocuted to death, a teenage girl die from choking on her own vomit, or another teenager sold as a sex-slave. And I would rate Frost/Nixon PG-13. Except for a very few choice words it's really a PG film.
That's assuming I would use the MPAA's ratings. But why would I used a broken system?
