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Family Group asks MPAA to Drop ‘Failed’ Ratings System; Urges Studios Adopt ‘Standards-Based’ Guidelines

August 20, 2009

LOS ANGELES, CA (MetroCatholic) –  Movieguide: The Family Guide to Movies and Entertainment has asked the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to drop its “failed” ratings system and return to “standards-based” guidelines, Dr. Ted Baehr, Movieguide’s founder and publisher, announced today.

Movieguide is also asking Americans to sign a petition urging the MPAA to end the ratings system and adopt a Code of Decency.

“The MPAA’s ratings system never worked really well, but it has gotten much worse since it added the ambiguous PG-13 rating,” Baehr said. “Parents, especially mothers, can no longer trust the ratings for movies, especially in light of the PG-13 ratings for movies like ‘The Love Guru’ and ‘Land of the Lost,’ and the R ratings for pornographic movies like ‘Brüno.’”

Baehr said the problem with the MPAA ratings is that they are not based on standards.

“This is not true of the Code of Decency,” he added, “so it is clear that the entertainment industry must return to the kind of system it had during the ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’ and the ‘Golden Age of Television,’ when it was a wonderful life in America because Mr. Smith went to Washington, Ricky still loved Lucy, and the Bells of St. Mary’s rang across the land.”

To sign the petition, go to www.movieguide.org/mpaapetition.

Baehr said he will send the signed petitions to the Federal Trade Commission, which has been given the power to regulate trade in the United States, including the trade of the six major Hollywood studios that own the MPAA and run the ratings system.

Baehr is chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission® (CFTVC) ministry, which publishes Movieguide (www.movieguide.org), CFTVC’s family guide to movies and entertainment. CFTVC and Movieguide are an international non-profit ministry dedicated to “redeeming the values of the entertainment industry by influencing industry executives and by informing and equipping the public about the influence of the entertainment media.”

Posted by George Vogt · Filed Under Catholic US News, Lifestyle 

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