Posted by sean at threshold5n.jpmorgan.com on August 08, 2001 at 15:32:51:
In Reply to: Would you rather a 'universal' ratings, then? posted by erran on August 08, 2001 at 15:22:16:
: Would an NC-17 video game be as bad as an NC-17 music CD??
I didn't mention games or CDs (CDs don't have ratings, incidentally). What I said was that the MPAA has no consistency and has set themselves up that way. They are accountable to nobody and can, on a whim, grant a film whatever rating they like without having to give specific examples from the film as to why.
The ratings board is a form of censorship. Frank Miller describes it better than I ever could, but that's his argument. Even if it does not censor in every example, people are forced to change things at every stage in order to get the ratings they want. [Frank Marshall had to do certain things, for instance, to insure "The Princess Diaries" got a G rating.]
So any sort of NC-17 is just as bad as any other, but the fact that their censorship needs no consistency makes the MPAAs ratings that much worse. [It's too bad Solondz isn't at a bigger studio, then they could buy him an R just like Spielberg did for Private Ryan and whoever did for South Park.]