Three Decades of Film Censorship ... right before your eyes.

In the United States, a powerful, private film-rating system has the effect of limiting what material can be presented to willing adults, even though the system isn't law. Because it is based in the entertainment industry, and media outlets frequently treat entertainment stories less critically than other news stories, the system is seldom seen as a problem.

Making change even more difficult to bring about are the misconceptions about the rating system and its outcome that have been repeated so often that large segments of the population accept them as fact. However, censorship--in whatever form--is a basic First Amendment issue, deserving serious debate and action. Therefore a candid expose of today's film-censorship-by-ratings machine is long overdue.

The Big Picture

Those films that circulate freely throughout society must pass muster at two stages. First they must pass through the filter of the motion picture industry, centered in southern California. This industry is dominated by seven majors--huge studios that arrange for the production and distribution of films. The largest studios are members of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a private organization that assigns one of five ratings to incoming content.

In the booklet Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Motion Rating System, the MPAA states: "the rating system is strictly voluntary and carries no force of law." It also indicates that the system isn't based on adult standards of content:

   The movie rating system is ... to provide parents with advance information
   on films, enabling the parent to make judgments on movies they want or
   don't want their children to see ... While the decision to enforce the
   rating system is purely voluntary, the overwhelming majority of theaters
   follow ... and diligently enforce [it]. [emphasis added]

However, MPAA member companies and their subsidiaries are obligated to submit their films to the association's Classification and Rating Administration (CARA); nonmembers, including independent filmmakers, also may submit feature films. And usually top directors aligned with the big studios are contractually obligated to deliver films with ratings other than NC-17, the most restrictive class. In 1997 the Los Angeles Times bluntly reported, "Sony and most other studios will not release NC-17 movies."

The rating system has been in place since November 1, 1968, in response to circumstances over the previous four decades. In 1930, after lobbying by the Catholic church and others, the MPAA devised a production code which succeeded in imposing severe content restrictions on films. For example, no "ridicule on any religious faith" was permitted, nor was "excessive and lustful kissing." Also expressly prohibited were the words gawd and hell. Entire social problems were forbidden. Although the system was one of self-regulation, the vertically integrated structure of the film industry made enforcement possible. Studios owned many theaters, so the code's dictates were obeyed for decades.

In the May 1999 Federal Communications Law Journal, Professor Angela Campbell of the Georgetown University Law Center identified five circumstances that eroded the production code:

* the public's reaction to World War II may have caused a demand for realism

* the new medium of television created competition

* an antitrust decision weakened code enforcement because studios had less control of exhibition

* more films were being produced independently and some of them presented serious topics or were mildly risque

* in 1952 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that movies are protected by the First Amendment

Add to Campbell's list the cultural revolution of the 1960s--an era that saw the rise of movements that challenged assumptions about sex, art, war, and institutions--as well as the fact that theaters, disproportionately based in urban centers, were negatively affected by suburbanization, putting pressure on movie executives to do something about sagging attendance. All of these factors loosened the code's chokehold on creativity. Moviegoers were demanding unrestrained themes, while some wanted to shield youngsters from such fare.

Then in March 1968 the U.S. Supreme Court released its Ginsberg and Dallas rulings, suggesting that cities and states could constitutionally eliminate minors' access to some films if age-classification laws were concocted and passed. The MPAA, in consultation with representatives of the theater and international film distribution industries, moved remarkably fast to establish a private regulatory system--so fast that not one locality passed a law targeting kids.

Since then the original 1968 four-category design of G, M, R, and X has evolved into today's G, PC, PC-13, R, and NC-17 scheme. Moreover, according to the MPAA's website (www.mpaa.org), "The rating symbols are federally registered certification marks of the MPAA and may not be self-applied." The MPAA never trademarked the X rating and no longer uses it for films. However, filmmakers are free to self-apply the X.

So, who applies the MPAA ratings? A small group of anonymous parents gathered in Encino, California. Between eight and thirteen of these individuals, whose views are supposed to reflect those of the average American parent (whatever that means), constitute the film-rating board CARA and have signed confidentiality agreements enabling them to screen films sometimes weeks or months before their premieres. The MPAA hasn't disclosed how much rating board members are paid.

After viewing a film, these board members have a group discussion and then vote on a rating. Outsiders know that if a majority of them vote for NC-17 then NC-17 is assigned. The MPAA says CARA members make "an educated estimate as to which rating most American parents will consider the most appropriate." However, there is no requirement that guarantees board members are credentialed experts in the process and effects of mass communication. Art degrees and artistic skill aren't required, and nonparents are not represented at all. Still, MPAA President and Chief Executive Officer Jack Valenti defended this lop-sided system to USA Today in 1999 as the only thing protecting the country from government censorship.

The second stage of the rating game is spread out across the United States. This "back end" of the film industry--multi-mall operators, cineplex chains, retail giants, and home-video chains--is the means by which Americans can or cannot watch films. Although a true democracy allows access to different ideas and images, many back-end film outlets deny adults this access because of the presence of the MPAA's centralized rating system.

When was the last time you saw an advertisement for the showing of an unrated film? Probably not recently. According to Marjorie Heins' 1993 book Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America's Censorship Wars, "Most theaters adhere to the National Association of Theatre Owners, a cosponsor of the rating system, and thus will not show unrated films." How about an advertisement for an NC-17 film? According to Frank Miller's 1994 book Censored Hollywood: Sex, Sin, and Violence on Screen, "Hundreds of movie theaters routinely refuse to book films rated NC-17. In fact, many malls, which house a significant portion of U.S. movie screens, contractually bar their theaters from presenting [them]."

Home-video markets are also dominated by pinched policies. According to a 1992 New York Times report by William Grimes, "Blockbuster Video, Kmart, and Wal-Mart, which account for more than half of all video sales in the United States, will not handle NC-17 titles." Add to this private censorship an overlay of pressure groups targeting every part of the pipeline, from production to distribution to exhibition to sales. Indeed, the current rating system provides organized agitators with easy-to-identify targets and, since businesses tend to avoid risk and controversy, the pipeline is increasingly obedient to these agitators, many of which are conservative religious groups.

As a practical matter, this grand mess has created an autocratic bottleneck that films must squeeze through, being careful not to get sideswiped along the way. Since there is only one monolithic rating organization, a studio whose work is assigned an undesirable rating can't shop around for a comparable service. Similarly, if several theater chains refuse to book NC-17 films, distributors can't respond by quickly constructing hundreds of auditoriums. At the retail-and-rental level, Blockbuster, Inc., with over 4,500 stores in the United States alone, boasts online that it is the "Hollywood studio's largest single customer, spending $1.5 billion annually."

Where does all this leave directors and screenwriters? It means an NC-17 rating is to be dreaded, as the film will likely be unmarketable. So sometimes a contemplated film is never made. Or it is made but without the high production values that a major studio can provide. Or it is made but adults have little or no access to it. Often a film that receives an NC-17 warning is simply dumbed down to earn an R.

Behind Closed Doors

For over three decades, MPAA rating board members have done more than assign ratings or warnings of probable ratings. Sometimes ratings are changed. Indirect negotiations can materialize, with the director receiving clues through an intermediary about which sequences are controversial. The film is then edited, resubmitted, and re-rated. Combine this time-consuming process with pressure from financial backers, and directors have an added incentive to create only those films that will avoid an unwanted rating later.

If the appeal process is undertaken, however, films are then considered by the MPAA's rating appeals board. This board is made up of fourteen to eighteen "men and women from the industry organizations that govern the rating system." It can therefore be argued that these members are predisposed in favor of the system. And like the MPAA's film rating board, its rating appeals board is not made up of aesthetes, critics, and consumers. After viewing a film, appeals board members take a secret ballot. A two-thirds majority is required to re-rate a film.

An MPAA summary of the procedures of its twin boards repeatedly refers to the entity submitting films as "producer/ distributor." The auteur (or director) is not described as present during the fateful gatherings. The resulting insulated obstacle-course-cum-roulette-wheel is therefore quite unlike a legal court, where a citizen can see who is making judgments and may speak on her or his own behalf.

Of the thousands of films rated in the three decades since the rating system was implemented--662 films in 1998 alone--the most disturbing cases involve those which were initially assigned--or warned about being assigned--the most restrictive rating available and were subsequently edited and later granted R status. This scenario is unsettling because legal, adult-to-adult communication was eliminated.

By contrast, in the parallel world of First Amendment law, precedents say that government regulations intended to block minors' access to controversial content are constitutional only if adult access is unimpeded. In other words, efforts to shield children must be narrowly tailored to do that--and nothing more. This guarantee currently doesn't exist in the private sphere, even though one of the stated objectives presented when the rating system was unveiled in 1968 was "to encourage artistic expression by expanding creative freedom." Another objective was to "assure that the freedom which encourages the artist remains responsible and sensitive to the standards of the larger society."

Popular Beliefs About Cinema Ratings

After two decades of attending public forums and listening to people express their views about censorship and related topics, it has become apparent to me that a number of myths exist about the film-rating system. Let me state and respond to the four most common:

Myth #1: The purpose of the rating system is to provide information to adult moviegoers. Universal rating systems are so pervasive they are thought to be part of the natural order of things, like rain or sunsets. Many adults use film ratings to decide if they will attend a showing. This misconception that all adults need or potentially need film ratings acts to strengthen requests for government-coerced and other repressive rating systems. However, the MPAA clearly states that the purpose of its film-rating system is to provide information for parental decision making only: "If you are 18 or over, or if you have no children, the rating system has no meaning for you. Ratings are meant for parents, no one else."

Myth #2: Edits to secure an R rating don't significantly change a film. Often they do. For example, films with an anti-violence message--such as Soldier Blue or Scarface--are less able to communicate that message once edited. Reducing simulated violence in the early part of a film can eliminate a character's motivation, making a later scene--such as revenge behavior or a courtroom confrontation--gratuitous or meaningless. Cutting sensual shots can similarly affect subsequent plot developments. If a "finished" film is edited, information can become less connected and random, like confetti.

"Sometimes deletion affects the plot. Sometimes it only changes the tone," said Leonard Levine, board member of the Milwaukee Area Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "The `look and feel' of the film can be changed when a sequence is cut or shortened. It is very difficult to put limits and bounds on things and pretend that the film is not being significantly altered." As director James McNaughton explained to the Hollywood Reporter in 1992, "Often a film is like a house of cards": remove one and something collapses.

Myth #3: It's possible to create a clear line between R and NC-17 material. This is another way of saying that it's possible, without vagueness and overbreadth, to create a written definition of what is disallowed in one category and allowed in another. However, the task is impossible. Guidelines can't always indicate in advance if an explicit sequence will or won't trigger an NC-17.

Myth #4: The elimination of some adult-to-adult communication is not a significant effect of the rating system. A variation on this myth is the notion that film ratings are better than censorship, that categories exist in place of limits.

In the February 20, 1996, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, television columnist Joanne Weintraub wrote: "Movie ratings aren't perfect, but, as a filmgoer, I'm glad that a brilliant but brutally explicit movie like last year's Crumb was stamped with an R, not cut down or cleaned up for the sake of values." However, this reinforces the notion that ratings aren't a form of censorship--and that couldn't be further from the truth. The belief that the current system preserves adult-to-adult communication is blown out of the water with just a glance at the list of the films edited for "the system" (page 12).

The negative effects of the current rating system elude perception because they are so pervasive and gradual. And they are difficult to articulate in an eight-second sound bite, so even if negative effects are perceived they are less likely to be reported. Likewise, it's difficult for most people in the United States to accept that the rich and famous who make films have been hand-tied by a small group who are told to represent "average American parents." People also confuse intent with effects. Although MPAA employees may not intend to extinguish adult-to-adult communication, confining words, images, and sounds to cutting-room floors nevertheless sometimes is an outcome.

Fighting the System

There is little chance the current rating system will change unless the level of serious debate about it is raised. However, raising the level of debate means also raising a number of important questions about the system that have yet to be broached:

* Is there a double standard insofar as sex and violence?

* In the 1999 release American Pie, a sequence suggests that a teenager inserts his penis into a pie. What is the rational basis for the apparent board decision that five thrusts were unacceptable for R status while two or three were acceptable?

* If a director shows a white person getting shot in the face, is that more likely to trigger the most restrictive rating as compared to a black person being shot?

* The MPAA says its raters evaluate by considering "the film in its entirety." How can that be reconciled with re-ratings that have been based on brief sequences?

* Since some ratings have been challenged and changed with no editing, why wasn't the second rating assigned in the first place?

* Shouldn't cineplex chains and home-video stores that currently refuse all NC-17 and unrated content begin to offer some NC-17 films, perhaps in their least conservative markets, or request two versions of the same film so adults can choose which one to see?

* How can "most parents" guidelines make sense given the diverse nature of U.S. citizens?

* Why should adults who have grown children or no children be prevented from seeing legal content?

* Why can't the current rating system be dissolved in favor of several film-rating systems?

* Should raters break confidentiality agreements and criticize the system via "tell all" writings?

Likewise, the rating system--although voluntary--enjoys a level of authority akin to law. Therefore, action at the highest level is needed along with discussion. Tell your senators that you want justices appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court who have opined that obscenity (as defined in the disastrous cluster of 1973 Court rulings informally called Miller v. California) is protected by the First Amendment. Oregon's supreme court affirmed such protection in 1986. An overturn of the High Court's anti-obscenity precedents would prevent future prosecutors from legally denying adults access to unrated, NC-17, and X films in all fifty states.

It is also imperative that, as more and more control is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, enlightened consumers express their concerns about the rating system's negative effects to as many film-related corporations as possible. Comment cards, prepaid and preaddressed, are available at retail sites. Letters should ask cineplexes and retailers to offer unrated and NC-17 films. If a new film has been cut, a letter to the editor should point it out. Misstatements by pro-censorship groups, columnists, politicians, and academics also need to be corrected whenever made.

In a Web document entitled "The Movie Rating System," the MPAA's Jack Valenti declared that movies are the "most creative of art forms." In a 1996 issue of Columbia-VLA Journal of Law and the Arts, attorney Jacob Septimus observed that films "may be the single greatest cultural influence on the collective American psyche." However, the right to create, exhibit, or watch a film is only a quaint abstraction if marketplace conditions and practices prevent people from doing so.

Since movie theater attendance figures and home-video sales indicate growing interest in films, there should be growing interest in their First Amendment protection. Through a coordinated and comprehensive grass-roots effort, We the People can succeed in promoting and protecting a diverse marketplace of ideas on screen. Until then, the screen is not free.

What Do the Rating Symbols Mean?

G General Audiences--All ages admired. Signifies that the film rated contains nothing most parents will consider offensive even for their youngest children to see and hear. Nudity, sex scenes, and scenes of drug use are absent; violence is minimal; snippets of dialogue may go beyond polite conversation but do not go beyond common everyday expressions.

PG Parental Guidance Suggested--Some material may not be suitable for children. Signifies that the film rated may contain some material parents might not like to expose to their young children--material that will clearly need to be examined or inquired about before children are allowed to attend the film. Explicit sex scenes and scenes of drug use are absent; nudity, if present, is seen only briefly; horror and violence do not exceed moderate levels.

PG-13 Parents Strongly Cautioned--Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. Signifies that the film rated may be inappropriate for pre-teens. Parents should be especially careful about letting their younger children attend. Rough or persistent violence is absent; sexually oriented nudity is generally absent; some scenes of drug use may be seen; some use of one of the harsher sexually derived words may be heard.

R Restricted--Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian (age varies in some jurisdictions). Signifies that the rating board has concluded that the film rated may contain some adult material. Parents are urged to learn more about the film before taking their children to see it. An R may be assigned due to, among other things, a film's use of language, theme, violence, sex, or its portrayal of drug use.

NC-17 No One 17 and Under Admitted. Signifies that the rating board believes that most American parents would feel that the film is patently adult and that children age 17 and under should not be admitted to it. The film may contain explicit sex scenes, an accumulation of sexually oriented language, and/or scenes of excessive violence. The NC-17 designation does not, however, signify that the rated film is obscene or pornographic in terms of sex, language, or violence.

-- from Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Movie Rating System, published by the Motion Picture Association of America and the National Association of Theatre Owners in association with local theaters.

Edited for "the System"

The list of films known to have been edited to avoid an X or NC-17 rating--presented here together in one place for the first time (with their director in parentheses)--is long, beginning within one year after the rating system took effect and peaking in 1999:

* The Wild Bunch, 1969 (Sam Peckinpah)

* The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart, 1970 (Leonard Horn)

* Soldier Blue, 1970 (Ralph Nelson)

* Straw Dogs, 1971 (Sam Peckinpah)

* Fingers, 1978 (James Toback)

* Dressed to Kill, 1980 (Brian De Palma)

* The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1981 (Bob Rafaelson)

* Scarface, 1983 (Brian De Palma)

* Crimes of Passion, 1984 (Ken Russell)

* 9 1/2 Weeks, 1986 (Adrian Lyne)

* She's Gotta Have It, 1986 (Spike Lee)

* Angel Heart, 1987 (Alan Parker)

* RoboCop, 1987 (Paul Verhoeven)

* Basic Instinct, 1992 (Paul Verhoeven)

* Damage, 1992 (Louis Malle)

* The Lover, 1992 (Jean-Jacques Annaud)

* Body of Evidence, 1993 (Uli Edel)

* Hard Target, 1993 (John Woo)

* Sliver, 1993 (Philip Noyce)

* The Advocate, 1994 (Leslie Megahey)

* Natural Born Killers, 1994 (Oliver Stone)

* Bliss, 1997 (Lance Young)

* Boogie Nights, 1997 (Paul Thomas Anderson)

* Two Girls and a Guy, 1997 (James Toback)

* American Pie, 1999 (Paul Weitz)

* Coming Soon, 1999 (Colette Burson)

* Eyes Wide Shut, 1999 (Stanley Kubrick)

* South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, 1999 (Trey Parker)

* Summer of Sam, 1999 (Spike Lee)

Studios have learned that the publicity generated by an NC-17 can increase interest in a film. For the U.S. market, studios sometimes also release "director's cut" or unrated home video versions of films that had been edited for theaters. Note, however, how many of the films on the above list are major motion pictures by critically acclaimed directors who had deals with major studios. If someone as securely positioned as Brian De Palma or the late Stanley Kubrick couldn't place their films in theaters without edits, then who can? Even a record of commercial success is useless.

Chris Roth is a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union chapter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and welcomes your comments by e-mail at [e-mail].