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The 1968 guide to motion picture viewing. G: All ages
admitted, general audiences. GP: All ages admitted,
parental guidance suggested. R: Restricted, under 17
requires accompanying parent or adult guardian, proof
of age required. X: No one under 17 admitted, proof of
age required.
to show a film without the sea!.
Scenes violating the Code either had
to be cut or altered to get a sea! of ap–
proval. As always, there was pres–
sure by movie makers to stretch the
Code out of its original intent. But as a
whole, the early administrators were
men of principie and character. Most
held to the line of the Code.
Then post-World War II prosperity
bit with its resulting craze for pleasure
and escapism. Church atteodance statis–
tics mushroomed in a world over–
shadowed by the new threat of the
Bomb. But a growing spirit of indiffer–
ence crept over vast segments of the
Christian-professing society. Religion
was increasingly criticized for íts grow–
ing irrelevancy, vagueness and lack of
influence on society.
Many producers, trying to get around
tbe Code guidelines, began employing
the reasoning that if two people
"loved" each other outside of wedlock,
it was not
adttftery
(
one of the Ten
Commandments), but something else.
The Code Becomes Meaningless
By the Sixties, television had weaned
away vast segments of the movie au–
dience. Producers found themselves
beset with Jinancial problems. Court
rulings on freedom of sexual expression
in literature increased strong pressures to
allow complete freedom of film content.
Then foreign sexploitation films hit the
nation in independent theaters and
people flocked to them to taste the for–
bidden Fruit. (Ironically, the European
countries which produced these films
had devised means of keeping their
young children away from these clearly
unsuitable fums, while the same films
were fully exposed to American chil–
dren from coast to coast.)
U. S. movie makers of the early
1960's crash-produced more explicit
films and got a special S.M.A. (Sug–
gested for Mature Audiences) label so
they could be shown. Soon S.M.A. rat–
ings were so prolific, the Code was be–
coming rapidly circumvented.
Revisions in the Code were made
periodícally. In 1956, prohibitions
against narcotics, prostitution and mis–
cegenation were rescinded. Five years
later the Code was amended again to
allow homosexuality and other sexual
aberrations to be portrayed, provided
they were "treated with care, discretion,
and restraint." In 1966, the Code was
simplified to ten brief paragraphs (see
Censorship of the Movies,
by Richard S.
Randall, pp. 201-2). This revision per–
mitted a further relaxation of two
prohibitions of the older code - nudity
and profanity.
New movies with more explicit
themes won further concessions from
beleaguered movie censors. Concessions,
'
like eating potato chips, grew to be
addictive. Once producers started with
one breakthrough they couldn't stop.
The cracks in the moral dam became
wider and wider. Even the religious
censorship boards were giving more lib–
eralized ratings to movies formerly
censored outright. Growing numbers of
church members were no longer paying
strict attention to churcb rating systems.
The inevitable carne. In 1968 the old
censorship code was scrapped by the
Code leadership. Movie makers could
now produce anythiog they wanted.
Responsibility was passed to the public
for what they wanted to
see~
In tbe
Code's place, in November, L968, carne
the subjective rating system we have to–
day. Its purpose was to provide a
cautionary guideline for parents about
movie content that might be harmful to
children.
An Imperfect Code
The administrators of the present rat–
ing system, the Code and Rating
Administration (CARA) of the
Motion Picture Association of Amecica
(MPAA) will be the first to admit the
present system is far from perfect or sat–
isfactory to everyone.
According to Dr. Aaron Stern, head
of the CARA since July 1971, "The
Code attempts to describe movies
according to the values and beliefs of