The Church and the Ratings System

As sort if an introduction to our reading and discussion for Thursday's class on the 6th I think it's good to ramble and rant a little on the film ratings systems in the United States. I knew that early ratings and censorship was heavily influenced by the Catholic and Protestant churches, but I guess I underestimated just how involved they were. The church essentially headed the front on these organizations that censored our art and essentially limited a lot of creativity in the United States. I think that's why often times we see foreign films with more graphic or uncomfortable content versus seeing that stuff in the US because we were made to do without it for a few decades. I was surprised to see that the Catholic church was even crazier about it because most of my friends and schoolmates from all my years of Catholic schoolings seemed to be way more open to film and pop culture as opposed to most protestants I have met here. Also the introduction of the MPAA was kind of a bittersweet moment. On one end we get this system that rates our movies, allowing us to have more freedom in what we create knowing there will be a warning on it. But then you get a lot of people complaining about the system and having problems with their agency in general. So we have quite a few problems there. I think it is a very interesting topic so I'm ready to see where the discussion will lead us in this next class period.