Do Movie Ratings Need New Categories?

"Smoke and mirrors" is how filmmaker Matt Stone recently described the Motion Picture Assn. of America's movie rating system.

"Hypocritical . . . and broken-down," wrote film critic Roger Ebert.

"Political artifice," opined Peter Bart, the editor of Variety.

"A de facto censorship board," agreed the Broadcast Film Critics Assn.

In the face of all this, MPAA President Jack Valenti remained unfazed (though a tad testy), calling critics of the ratings system he authored 31 years ago "so-called intellectuals" and giving them this nickname: CWs, or Constant Whiners.

Even for Hollywood, this exchange of verbal invective--conducted in public, in several guest columns in Variety as well as a televised debate (between Valenti and Bart) on NBC's "Today" show--has been unusually personal. Stone has called Valenti "nauseating" and a liar, for example, and Ebert said Valenti lacks "the slightest understanding of film as an art form."

Wipe away the barbed rhetoric, however, and the argument remains a sticky one. At issue: How to give parents guidance about film content while preserving filmmakers' artistic freedom. Critics of the current MPAA rating system--which uses the symbols G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17--say it fails on both counts, neither fully informing consumers nor protecting cinematic creativity.

"Noisy kvetching," says Valenti derisively of this new wave of criticism, which has escalated in the wake of the high school shootings in Littleton, Colo., and the subsequent debate about young people's access to violent media. But lately the kvetching has gotten louder and harder to dismiss, including several high-profile ratings battles--over Stone and Trey Parker's "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut," the late Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" and Spike Lee's "Summer of Sam," to name three--and a variety of proposals to revamp the ratings system.

Is the MPAA system, which last year gave 65% of all movies an R rating, due for a change? Those who say yes are proposing everything from banning young children from attending R-rated films to inventing a new "adult" rating between R and NC-17.

Critic Roger Ebert Urges New Adults-Only Rating

The latter is Ebert's idea. He argues that the current system effectively rules out the possibility of what he calls "a true adults-only movie." He calls for a new "A" rating between R and NC-17, that would signify adult material that is not pornographic.