Why America’s Film Regulatory System Could Use a European Makeover

In the search for a more accessible post-secondary education model, American reformers are increasingly eyeing Europe for answers - in the realm of film. A pivotal place for discovery beyond the classroom—puritan, corporate-driven policies exclude American youth from an array of enriching content that is made available to many of their European counterparts. The official arbiter of film ratings in the U.S., the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), bars young people from much of our culture’s most prized cinematic productions. Artistically ambitious films are disproportionately vulnerable to the MPAA’s censorious tripwires. According to MPAA guidelines, a brief nipple cameo or the double utterance of “one of the harsher, sexually derived words” is all it takes to warrant a restricted status. Consequently, every Oscar-winning Best Picture film since 2005 has come saddled with an R-rating, limiting theatre audiences of these critically-acclaimed works to adults and supervised minors. Indeed, it was several isolated uses of the F-bomb that earned movies like Philomena and The King’s Speech the prohibitive R—never mind their largely innocuous content, and moreover, informative historical narratives of loss, perseverance, and personal redemption. MPAA policies reflect and perpetuate the objectifying premium Americans place on the female body, and often shield our youth from valuable cultural dialogue.

Countries like France, Germany, and Finland view language and sexual content with far greater lenience. In all three places, both Philomena and The King’s Speech were (rightfully) permitted to preteens. Further, the French, in their typical free-loving fashion, deemed the notoriously erotic Fifty Shades of Grey—equipped with a whopping 20 minutes of on-screen sex scenes—OK for everyone 12 and up. The same flick was an obvious R in the U.S. (and even banned outright in countries like Malaysia). Are twelve-year old French kids really more sexually mature than 16-year-old Americans, let alone, Malaysian adults? Whether or not American caution was justified in this specific instance, these cultural rifts show just how arbitrarily film authorities decide what is—and isn’t—acceptable for national consumption, and when.

If American regulators are squeamish on matters of sex and language, they are numb to matters of violence. The MPAA guidelines say that a film can stay PG-13 as long as its violence is “generally not both realistic and extreme or persistent.” This deliberately ambiguous wording is convenient for the MPAA, whose board is comprised of representatives from the six major movie conglomerates—Hollywood giants who benefit from keeping big, violent franchise films expanded to larger audiences.

Notably absent from this cultural adjudication process are independent production companies, who tend towards less expensive, more dialogue-heavy films. As a result, American adolescents get turned away from movies like Boyhood and The Bully Movie—expressive films that deal with the trials and tribulations of growing up; the very films specifically directed at their constituency. On the other hand, the same adolescents get full access to morally bankrupt blockbusters like Live Free or Die Hard, The Dark Night Rises, and other gaudy shoot-‘em-ups and apocalyptic war porn. A study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center revealed that PG-13 movies “now contain more gun violence than those tagged with the restrictive R.” At a time of soaring rates of gun violence in the United States, our youth’s increased exposure to wanton human carnage is unlikely a positive force.

Its pitfalls aside, film has the power to help students bridge socioeconomic gaps and travel the world for the cost of a ticket stub or a friend’s Netflix password. But to what kind of world do we want our kids to travel? In their efforts to answer that, regulatory groups like the MPAA play a vital role. Sex, drugs and violence—in crude excess—can be unhealthy for 12-year-olds of any country. Yet while caution is necessary, we should curb and redirect our overly protective impulses to encourage young people to view acclaimed works that grapple with life’s most important questions.

In contrast to the MPAA, French, German, and Finnish film regulators apply a more liberal approach to bodily and linguistic expression while strictly monitoring the dissemination of violence. It is no coincidence that, in comparison, these regulatory authorities—including the French Film Commission, the FSK in Germany, and Finnish Centre for Media Education—employ more impartial models that involve self-regulation, non-corporate board members, and/or larger bodies representing a cross-section of the national film industry. America needs the MPAA to revamp itself, or attempt something new, akin to its more progressive counterparts across the Atlantic.