Do People Care about Movie Ratings Anymore? (Part 3 – Conclusion)

Part 1:

https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2023/11/do-people-care-about-movie-ratings.html?spref=fb&fbclid=IwAR1n23TQgeUU9xgqWmmbl2WT8sFIxnO8xdtTN6pEBNwqEO_vPpTniOBU-xI

Part Two:  

https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2023/11/do-people-care-about-movie-ratings_19.html

In part one I started at the beginning of how films were censored and rated (or, rather, not rated) and last time moved into the era of the MPAA and the development of the PG-13 rating. For this last part we’ve reached the age of streaming, when watching movies at home changed drastically, and we face the answer to the question of what ratings mean in today’s society.

 

The Dawn of Streaming (2010s)

Let’s get to the big question here: do ratings matter anymore? The reason I ask is because there isn’t the same kind of enforcement with them that once existed before streaming. If I went to the video store as a kid I couldn’t rent a movie that carried an R-rating without a parent or guardian accompanying me and saying it was OK, and even then, they had to rent it for me; it wasn’t like I had my own account. Were some kids able to get away with renting something they weren’t supposed to sometimes? Of course. I’m sure it happened often; some 19-year-old working a late shift at the local video store who didn’t really care and wasn’t being paid enough rented out The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to a seven-year-old on probably more than one occasion. But unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) video stores aren’t around anymore so that kind of thing is no longer an issue. Now, there are new issues that have resulted from streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu taking over how films and TV shows are primarily viewed at home.

I don’t know if the rules about selling DVDs/Blu-rays are/were the same as renting them, but I never seemed to have a problem buying R-rated movies from the store even when I was still technically too young. I still buy physical media and prefer it to streaming, but the reality is undeniable. Streaming is more popular because it’s more convenient and offers the illusion of ease as well as unlimited variety of choices. I say illusion because most streaming services don’t have as wide of a selection as large chain video stores used to have, and the movies may be removed from some services after a while because if a streaming service didn’t create the movie (meaning it was made by a movie studio not directly affiliated with the service) then they are just paying to host it there, until they stop doing that, which it seems they inevitably do (this is mainly a Netflix and Prime issue). If a video store had a video, you could rent it whenever you wanted, so long as someone else hadn’t rented it first (but often there would be more than one copy so that wasn’t always a problem) and it was pretty much a guarantee that it would never be removed from the store’s catalogue. To bring it back to ratings, video stores had clear guidelines that aligned with the Motion Picture Association film rating system, but streaming services do not.

Netflix, one of the most popular streaming services, is part of the Motion Picture Association, along with the five major film studios (Universal, Paramount, Warner Brothers, Disney, and Sony), so it’s not like Netflix original films get rated differently than movies released in theaters, and that makes sense, especially since many Netflix movies get released on the service and in theaters. But, a rating won’t stop a curious kid from logging into Netflix and clicking on a movie and watching it. So, what will? There’s a kids option for setting up a Netflix account, which limits what movies or shows can be viewed, but speaking from personal experience and many reliable accounts, not many people bother to do that, nor do they keep their login password private. Some parents let their kids make their own Netflix account and don’t even bother to check what they have been watching. You might have one user account for the whole household and be able to see what others have been checking out, but it’s easier than ever now for kids to watch whatever they want whenever they want without any restrictions. I know of twelve-year-olds who have watched the Jeffrey Dahmer series released on Netflix last year. Something like that would’ve probably put me in therapy had I seen it that young.

One thing that hasn’t changed is this: it is ultimately up to the parents to be aware of what a movie or show is rated and make the final decision. I had friends growing up who were allowed to watch anything no matter what it was rated, which didn’t seem fair when I was a kid, but I look back on the way my mom and dad (mainly mom) navigated what was OK for me to watch and what wasn’t and decided when I was old enough for certain movies or able to make my own decisions about what to watch and I think they did a good job of keeping me from getting traumatized. It was also easier to do, I think, before streaming. Sometimes I don’t even know what a movie is rated on a streaming service until after I’ve started watching it. Videos (VHS and DVD and Blu-ray) would display the rating on the box as well as before the movie began and it was usually un-skippable on a DVD. It’s not that streaming services don’t show what something is rated, but it certainly isn’t in your face about it most of the time.

Another complicating matter is how streaming has blended the worlds of television and film. TV ratings have never matched up with movie ratings, so if a movie was broadcast on TV, it might very well be a censored version depending on the rating, perhaps with coarse language removed or violence cut out. That used to seem annoying, but now I look back at the “TV edit” with a certain fondness. It’s almost a lost art in and of itself. I like that movies can now be more easily seen as they were originally intended to be seen without being censored, but at the same time there are now fewer options for how to see a movie because of streaming. I saw some of my favourite movies of all-time on TV for the first time, and usually they were at least censored for coarse language, which I didn’t think was so bad, but now I don’t even have cable and most kids probably aren’t growing up watching movies on TV either, they’re watching them through streaming.

Streaming allows for longer form storytelling without the limits of major network censorship or the need to insert commercial breaks, so now some stories that could have been told in a two-hour movie are made into a ten-hour season of a show that may or may not continue, but how is that rated? It can’t really be rated using the MPA rating system because it’s not a movie, but it also isn’t going to be rated the same as a TV show on cable, so I don’t even know how they decide what to rate a Netflix or other streaming service original show. It’s a bit like a premium cable channel used to be (or still is) like HBO, which could get away with more swearing and violence than a network like NBC or CBS or FOX. But, because the streaming service is the one producing the show, they can set their own standards (hence why there are so many Netflix original series).   

The Death of Ratings?

Let’s bring it back to Stranger Things. That’s a show I know I would have loved as a kid, but there’s a decent amount of content in it (violence, horror, coarse language) that probably would have made it an R-rated show if we were to apply a traditional film rating to it. The rating Netflix gave it was TV-14, meaning it’s not recommended to anyone younger than that. That’s what it’s rated in Canada, at least. Something I haven’t touched on yet is how movie ratings are not universal. I live in Canada so I was able to see some movies in the movie theater as a teenager that US teens would not have been allowed to see without a parent. Up here we have 14-A (no one under 14 admitted without parent), which is what a violent, cursing-filled movie will sometimes get if it lacks sex and/or nudity or much explicit blood and guts. The same movie will likely still be R-rated in the states. Usually sexual content will boost a movie to 18-A in Canada, which is about the Canadian equivalent of a restricted US flick. TV ratings get even more confusing because they don’t align with the Canadian movie rating system or the US rating systems.

The Amazon Prime series The Summer I Turned Pretty is rated TV-14, and the show is based on a YA novel, clearly targeting a teen audience…and yet it has quite a bit of swearing, enough that it would have been R-rated had it been a movie (remember, more than one F-bomb is an auto R). It’s as if the creators and the folks running the streaming service know that kids talk like this and they’re going to watch the show anyway so why bother omitting coarse language? This could be a sign of the times. There are conversations had by people all the time about what a movie released decades ago would be rated if it was released today, because our standards have changed. Parents are constantly complaining about the violence in movies and TV shows, and I get it, because a lot of it does seem to be getting past the censors largely unchecked now. I never understood as a kid why Alien (1979) was rated R but AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004) was rated PG-13, because AVP was incredibly violent and intense, arguably even more so than Alien. Apparently it’s fine to show violence as long as the blood isn’t red…I wish I was joking, but that’s pretty much the truth. Sexual content will also escalate a film’s rating, sometimes to the point of getting the dreaded NC-17, but guess what? In the age of streaming, that doesn’t really matter anymore. I can click on an NC-17-rated film just as easily as a G-rated film, and so can everyone else if they have access to a streaming service with an account on standard settings.

So, is it a bad thing if we have reached the end of an era in which a rating system is enforced? Well, I don’t think ratings are dead, exactly, and I don’t think they are completely obsolete, but it is time they changed. As I’ve gone over in this lengthy exploration on the history of film ratings, the system has undergone many modifications over the decades, and I think we are on the cusp of a new bout of changes. Perhaps a new system that works for both films and shows on streaming services will be implemented, or the streaming services themselves will adopt new user guidelines for self-guided censorship. Just to be clear, there are ways of making your account password protected and safeguarding the content on those streaming services from younger viewers, but it just isn’t the same as having a theater usher or a video store clerk do it for you. It’s not as if the ratings are no longer relevant—I think they still serve that purpose of informing viewers about the general content of what they are about to watch—but it’s the enforcement of those ratings on younger viewers that’s dying out. 

Another scary thing about films existing on streaming is how easily they can be manipulated. Many Disney movies and shows have been edited or censored for the Disney+ streaming service, often because they contain depictions or references that are racist and outdated by today’s cultural standards. I take issue with this, and many others do, as well. When the controversy about the editing of The French Connection back in June of this year flared up online people bought out the stocks of Blu-rays because they panicked and realized the studios who own these films on these paid services can do whatever they want to them, because we are really only renting movies by using streaming, and if it isn’t a physical piece of media it can be subject to change at any point. The French Connection was missing a scene in its streaming version that contained use of racial slurs, with the argument being it’s no longer appropriate today, but many viewed this censorship as outright vandalism, altering a piece of art simply because of something that was a product of its time. It’s certainly a slippery slope, because where do you draw the line? Who knows? This is sort of a separate issue, but it relates to how films are viewed, and how we view them has been dictated by ratings for a very long time.

In conclusion, I don’t think most people care about movie ratings the way they used to, because the lines have been blurred, many of the enforcers have gone extinct, and the MPA have become so lenient with some things and so overly strict with others that they are no longer taken as seriously. Back in the day a studio really cared about what their movie would be rated because it could dramatically affect how much money it would make at the box office. A wider audience meant higher ticket sales, and it’s not like this isn’t still something studios think about, but it’s much easier to have a film that’s limited in who can view it (i.e. R-rated) be seen more widely by people at home checking it out on streaming. I think all this turmoil over the strikes in Hollywood this year largely surrounding the concerns from writers and actors about the threat of AI technologies and streaming services has shown that not everyone is so sure about the course Hollywood is currently taking with how movies and shows are being made and distributed. I wonder how long it will be before we hear some news about a change to the ratings system in relation to this new climate of watching movies on numerous devices wherever we can get an internet connection.