More Creepy Ratings

Last week’s article (“Ratings Creep”) examined the movie industry’s content ratings system and its ever-declining standards. Christians should realize that when it comes to choosing what’s appropriate to see, the MPAA ratings for movies (PG, PG-13, or whatever) are often totally useless.

As you probably know, television has developed a ratings system, too. Like the system for movies, it is supposed to assign each program an age-based rating to help parents determine what is suitable for their families to watch. TV shows are given ratings such as Y, Y7, G, PG, 14, or MA (for “mature audiences”). You’ve no doubt seen these letters flash on the screen from time to time. These ratings may also include “content descriptors” — V for violence, L for foul language, S for sexual content, and D for sexual dialogue.

However, like its motion picture counterpart, the television ratings system is fatally flawed. Calling it a “system” at all may be too generous; that word implies order and function, neither of which seems to exist in TV content ratings. As Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center explains, “What many parents don’t know is that, unlike the movie system, there is no independent ratings board for television … There is no inter-network consistency in the ratings. There isn’t even ratings consistency within each network.” The whole system is completely voluntary; it’s left up to the producers themselves to rate the content of their own programs.

The result is not hard to predict. The idea of rating shows objectively (that is to say, truthfully) presents networks with “a clear financial conflict of interest … If the network gives a program a tougher warning, it could scare off advertisers, lowering the network’s profits. So the networks are financially motivated to underrate (or refuse to rate) their programs.”

Of course, network executives stand behind the ratings system. In testimony before Congress, ABC president Alex Wallau called it a way “to enable our viewers to make informed choices about the programs they watch.” Wallau specifically pointed to the additional “content descriptors” (V, L, S, and D) in this regard. But all across the dial, networks often apply those descriptors improperly — or not at all. Wallau’s own network is a prime example: the Parents Television Council studied 85 shows on ABC and found that more than half did not have the proper content warnings. “Informed choices”? Please.

By the way, have you heard of the “V-chip”? It’s a feature on newer TV sets that lets the user automatically block programs with certain kinds of content. The V-chip has been touted as a godsend for parents, but the truth is that this technological marvel isn’t much help. For one thing, most people either have never heard of it or have no idea how to use it. But even worse, the chip’s operation is based entirely on — guess what? — those hopelessly unreliable “content descriptors.”

Once again, it’s up to parents to take responsibility for what is allowed in our households. Hollywood doesn’t care what your children are exposed to. A computer chip inside your TV can’t make moral choices. You are the only protection your kids have. Christian moms and dads, don’t let them down.

“I will set no worthless thing before my eyes” (Psalm 101:3).

[Data and quotes are from “The V-Chip Is No Magic Pill,” by Brent Bozell, via Townhall.com, 4/15/2005.]