Footloose Compare/Contrast
Rating systems today are not how they were in previous years. Footloose is a
movie that was released in 1984, then in 2011 Craig Brewer released his version of
Footloose. The two movies have different ratings but are based on the same story line, I
will talk about the rating system, I will compare the two movies, and then i will tell my
opinion on the ratings of the movies and the rating system.
The rating system started in 1922, it was created by William Hays, the Motion
Pictures Distributors Association of America, or what is now the MPAA. Movie ratings
are important because they are what show if it’s appropriate for younger viewers to
watch it or not. In 1984 the rating PG-13 was introduced also in 1984. PG-13 is movies
where parents are strongly cautioned, some material may be inappropriate for children
under 13, some PG-13 movies include, “Forest Gump” , “Titanic”, and “Paper Towns”.
In 1968 the modern voluntary movie rating system is created. Movies were rated G, M,
R or X. The rate M, later became PG. In 1990 the rating of NC-17 was created to
replace the X rating. NC-17 is a rating where viewers only 17 or older can watch that
movie such as the movies, “Blue is the warmest color”, “Shame” and “Saw”. The rating
R stands for Restricted, viewers under 17 must be accompanied by an adult to be able
to see the movie, some movies include, “Bridesmaids”, “Zombieland”, and “Step
Brothers”. Every rating is there for the viewers protection. If there was no rating system
the world would be even worse than it already is. If you just let kids watch any movie
they would know way more stuff than they need to. By putting ratings on movies you are
restricting kids to watch inappropriate movies that they don’t need to see. The ratings
that the MPAA give out are based on sex, sexual suggestion, or swearing, but MPAA
really doesn’t care about violence as much as they do about the first three topics. The
problem that I see in the MPAA rating system morals is that the system is okay with
spreading the violence in the American public, but if a person was to see something
suggesting sex or saying a swear word, then the rating system would automatically give
that movie a higher rating. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that MPAA system is fine with
violence, but not with sex or cursing. By the way MPAA rating system rates movies, it
seems like they would rather have children who hurt each other than children running
around cursing. The rating system should equally rate them by both the movies
violence, sexual scenes and cursing. Violence is equally bad as sex and cursing. Why
just focus on one bad thing when you should take care of all the problems?...
