The year is 1921. Silent cinema funnyman Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle goes off on a helluva toot in a San Francisco hotel and winds up accused of rape and manslaughter. Hearst newspapers have a field day digging up dirt, and the bad press results in Hollywood trying to save face and protect itself from government intrusion by forming in 1922 the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA).
The first president of this organization has no experience in film whatsoever. He is, in point of fact, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, one William Hays. The purpose of his post is to provide the appearance of "moral guidance" in the art of cinema. By 1930 he devises a loose code which we know by his name. By 1934 his repressive and arbitrary set of rules becomes strictly enforced.
Cut to 1966: President Lyndon Johnson's "special consultant" Jack Valenti is appointed head of the MPPDA. He changes the name to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and in 1968 replaces the antiquated and fuzzy Hays Code with the antiquated and fuzzy film rating system which still exists today and is shrouded in mystery.
In theory, the MPAA exists to avoid government censorship. In reality, the MPAA is headquartered in Washington, D.C. No one ever becomes the head of the MPAA by doing well at movies or having any experience in art. It's always a political appointment, and if this system existed in any other country, people here would call it propaganda. Currently all of this information may freely be found online.
The MPAA is the only ratings board that does not disclose who its board members are. In crucial respects it bears resemblance to the Electoral College System. Just as the Electoral College System wields true control over Presidential elections--we're not allowed to know the name of each state's electorate whose secret vote secures the Presidency--similarly, true power in film is held, not by artists, but by a secretive organization about which most people have little or no knowledge.
One documentary on the MPAA does exist. This Film is Not Yet Rated (2006) proves generally revealing. Featuring insightful commentary by several directors (including Kimberly Peirce, John Waters, Matt Stone, and Kevin Smith), Not Yet Rated focuses primarily on the MPAA's edict against sexuality. In particular, scenes depicting female pleasure. Violence against women, however, is routinely considered perfectly acceptable. This may possibly bear a relationship not with so-called Puritan roots, but rather with advertising precepts and the psychology of militarism. In Europe, we learn, the opposite is true. Whereas European movies depict sexuality comparatively freely, violence in any form, but particularly violence with guns, is considered undesirable.
Although the 98-minute film, freely available online, is entertaining, informative, and therefore well worth watching, it's far from thorough. It may prove of interest to viewers, for example, to discover that no one seems to know what it was exactly that Valenti did for LBJ. The Texas-born son of Italian immigrants started out in the advertising department of an oil company called Humble Oil. (Humble Oil eventually changed its name to Exxon.) Whatever he did for LBJ, he started that job on Nov. 22, 1963, hours after the assassination of President Kennedy. He was present in the Dallas motorcade, and can be seen in a photograph taken aboard Air Force One when LBJ is being sworn in as JFK's successor.
When Not Yet Rated was released in 2006, 90% of all US media were owned by a grand total of six corporations. (Apparently that number still holds; in 1983 it was fifty companies.) Anyone interested in the planet's number one form of art and entertainment would be well served to learn a little bit about the highly secretive censorship organization with zero transparency, zero accountability, and ultimate control of the images which program the perceptions of the world.
Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE
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