It takes a lot of creativity, and sometimes even a thesaurus, to be a movie rater these days.
From their San Fernando Valley screening room, the Motion Picture Assn. of America's raters watch more movies in a year than some people see in a lifetime. With each one, they try to summarize potentially objectionable parts while not giving away the plot.
Take "Superbad," the latest geek comedy from producer Judd Apatow opening Friday that includes, among other things, porn jokes and a school kid who sketches the male anatomy in lurid detail.
The MPAA rated it R for "pervasive crude and sexual content." Add to that "strong language, drinking, some drug use." There's also "a fantasy/comic violent image," Finally, it's "all involving teens."
"Some parents don't give a hoot about language but they are concerned about sexuality or violence," said Joan Graves, chairwoman of the ratings board for the last 18 years. "We're trying to give them as much information as we can."
For nearly 40 years, parents have relied on the MPAA's rating system to give them at least a clue as to what their kids want to see at the multiplex. Reacting to past criticisms that they didn't tell parents enough, movie raters now offer up increasingly elaborate summaries that, at the same time, must carefully dance around key plot lines. The result can be a mouthful of words that is bewildering to filmmakers, and amusing to those who bother to read the often very fine print.
The recent horror-comedy "Fido" fetched an R for "zombie-related violence," which means dining on human flesh. "Team America: World Police," a 2004 politically incorrect satire with jokes about AIDS and nuclear war, got an R rating for "graphic crude and sexual humor, violent images and strong language -- all involving puppets."
In doing so, raters have created a special kind of language that requires a lot of reading between the lines. Kimberly Thompson, an associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston who has studied the history of movie ratings, said that the MPAA's descriptions are often vague, such as with the oft-used phrase "thematic elements."
"My guess is that many parents have a hard time distinguishing the difference between 'innuendo' and 'sensuality,' " Thompson said.
Graves said the goal of raters is to provide parents "a snapshot."
