Hi Dark, Well, there are certainly problems with the rating system, and I also agree it could be improved. Although, I think a lot of this has to do with changing cultural views about morality and what is and is not acceptable content for children, teens, and so on. In that sense the rating system is constantly changing based on what is considered to be the norms for that certain place and time.
To give you an example back in the early days of film, say the 20's and 30's, it was not permitted to show a man and woman sleeping in bed together let alone anything sexually explicit. In fact, a lot of those early movies didn't even show the bedroom at all if they could help it. I don't think they even showed kissing on the mouth either. To someone like me that seems a bit sexually repressive, overly extreme, but back then that is how it was. Never mind I'm sure children then, as they do today, see it all the time in watching their parents kiss or pop in mom and dads bedroom and find them in bed together in their night clothes. Now days you can turn on almost any daytime soap and see actors laying in bed dressed in only their under ware, kissing and smooching, maybe the actress will be in a sexy teddy, and all that skin would probably give the people in the 20's and 30's heart attacks. Things are so much different now that daytime soaps are considered PG or teen rated where not even adults would have considered anything that scandalous a generation or two before on TV or in movies. It seems the whole attitude about sexuality in TV has changed as nudity wouldn't have been given anything less than rated X in the 60's or 70's but there are a lot of rated R movies with nudity and even sex scenes in them today. Even some PG movies have partial nudes in them. Violence in movies and games similarly has changed over the years. In the old days of TV cop shows like Highway Patrol or Dragnet you didn't see the kinds of fighting or blood, guts, and gore found in many modern cop shows. Now days aside for basic censorship like excluding nudity and graphic violence pretty much anything goes in a modern cop show. They might not show a rape in graphic detail, but there are plenty of shows where the victims must verbally recount the entire ordeal in graphic detail which is almost as bad. Especially, if small children are around to hear it. So clearly public attitudes of what is permissible on TV has changed in just the space of a generation or so. I guess where I am heading with this is that ultimately it is up to the parents or guardians to make the final decision what is and is not age appropriate content for their children. We can't depend on game companies or the film industry to properly police the content for us, because as so often happens what they think and parents think is OK are different. Your example of rating torture scenes in movies with no blood in them one way and rating scenes with blood and gore in it another way is a case in point of how people can disagree on the boundaries of what is and is not age appropriate content. That is why it is so important for parents to view the film, play the game, etc before giving it to their kids because only they know what content they personally feel comfortable with at that age. The companies and film industry are only going by public trends, and can't rate their content on an individual basis. Cheers! On 4/17/13, dark <d...@xgam.org> wrote: > Hi tom. > > I agree on the horror front, though I was also reading books by steven king > > and even Clive barker at age 12 and 13 as well. It wasn't that my parents > weren't bothered what I read, it was more that they knew I was old enough to > > take that sort of thing appropriately. > > what Concerns me often however with both game and film ratings is that they > > are frequently worked out on very silly points. For example, I know at one > stage the difference betwene a 12 and a pg was that in a 12, you could > actually show a fist connecting with someone. this meant that in a pg you > could show someone throwing a punch, and someone else falling down knocked > back by the blow, but just as long as you avoided that moment of impact it > was okay. This was how the original street fighter live action film (the > very horrible one with raul julian), got to be a pg. > > Similar distinctions are made for many other things, indeed it has always > bothered me that you can legitimately show a child someone getting tortured, > > even tortured into the point of sobbing insensativity and yet not hit over > the ratings so long as there is no blood. This happens in original V the > final battle, there is a really horrendous torture sequence just! using > laser beams and metanl projections of one of the main characters, who is! > broken by it, yet that episode is a 12 rated. > > Myself, I'd prefer a system rated not on blood and guts, but on actual > intentional harm caused. Thus, something like gta would still be a 16 rating > > because your doing immoral actions in the game, while something like swamp > I'd regard as more an advisery over 10 rating since you were dealing with > painfull death by zombies, but not much else. > > As to s/xual stuff, well that is just not something I can make a rational > judgement about in games or anywhere else so I can't really comment on > that. > > Beware the Grue! > > Dark. > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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