Meta Month 11: Interesting link on MPAA ratings in fandom

[wallwalker]

Link you might be interested in: Why MPAA Age Ratings In Fandom Suck: A Primer. (There are a couple of really interesting links within that post as well, in the first paragraph.)

I had known that MPAA ratings were controversial, and I still remember the outcry when ff.net decided to switch away from them for copyright reasons. But I had never really looked at their requirements or their politics. It's not surprising, but it's saddening all the same.

I had always known that they treated male and female sexuality unequally, and I had definitely noticed that male and female nudity was treated very differently. But I had never realized that a sex scene that shows a woman being coerced into sex, or otherwise giving only dubious consent at best, often finds it easier to get a lower rating than that of a woman actually enjoying herself and whole-heartedly consenting to sex! Is that really a message we should be sending to kids, of either gender? That it's okay as long as you make her do it/someone makes you do it?

Still, it's the system that a lot of people have grown used to, and I can say, it's hard to get used to something else. I like the system that thene suggests in its place, though the one change I'd make is to separate the SFW tags as well. SFW covers a lot of ground, and it would be good to at least have a way to differentiate between, say, angst and happy fluff. Although a separate "Genre" tag might work better for those purposes.

(On another note, people can still read outside internet stuff at work? I know my workplace has never allowed it. Everything's blocked.)

Comments

[owlmoose]

Have you seen the documentary "This Movie Is Not Yet Rated"? It's a really fascinating look at the politics and abuse of the MPAA system.

I have gotten away from using MPAA ratings myself -- I've started using the broader classifications on AO3 along with content notes (and warnings, when appropriate, which in my case is almost never). And I've seen more and more communities doing it, too. It's a good trend, I think.

[vilkacis]

a sex scene that shows a woman being coerced into sex, or otherwise giving only dubious consent at best, often finds it easier to get a lower rating than that of a woman actually enjoying herself and whole-heartedly consenting to sex

I

what

WHAT

...I still think there may be some merit to having one quick-look rating number or letter as opposed to seven or eight "N/SFW because $CONTENT" ones, but. What the fuck, MPAA. I knew the organization sucked, but I didn't know if sucked quite that hard. I'm going to have to re-watch "This film is not yet rated", because clearly it has been too long.

[tw: discussion of cultural attitudes toward assault and coercion]

[lassarina]

And this is what it's like to live in a rape culture. Women can't own their own sexuality and consent is a bonus. :/ (Also helps contribute to the myth that "she was asking for it.")

I still use the MPAA ratings, but I just rate for graphicness of sex and violence. I'll probably move away from using them, though.

As far as outside internet stuff--yeah, most of the places I've worked have allowed at least some stuff. The most restrictive disallowed social networking/dating (which somehow didn't catch LJ) and anything to do with games, while the least restrictive had no filter at all and as long as my boss didn't see me with genitalia on the screen there was no fuss no muss. Current place is a bit in between.

[stealth_noodle]

I've decided to stop using MPAA ratings and experiment with "Contains:" tags and similar until I find something I like better. Because yeah, they don't make a lot of sense for written fiction, and they are pretty gross by association.

As far as I can recall, my workplaces have never blocked outside Internet stuff. Of course, I've also worked almost exclusively in academia, where we generally don't block anything at all.

[thene]

Thanks for chiming in on this! I regret that I didn't notice before now - I need to add this comm to my reading page, because as is I've just been checking it every week or two and therefore I miss things.

I like 'SFW' and 'NSFW' because it's what everyone else on the internet uses, it's a pretty universal standard and it reflects the fact that our reading choices are just that, open and situational choices made by people of all ages, rather than being some kind of rite of passage process for teens. I've never read fanfic while at work (...written, yes) but I've read fic in libraries, in cafes, at friendly/family gatherings, etc.

Just offhand I don't think that the MPAA system makes it any easier to sort fluff from angst than SFW/NSFW would, as either fluff or angst could be of any MPAA rating. I think genre is a separate category of information from that which is generally communicated by ratings.

And thanks, I was never sure of why FFN stopped using the MPAA system, although I had heard about the MPAA issuing takedowns against individual fan sites regarding ratings. I must have missed the outcry! Kinda funny that in a roundabout way that's what brought the porn back - they mass-deleted the NC17 category in 2002 and issued upload bans to people who posted porn for a while after that (which seemed to be a significant driver behind fic fandom moving over to LJ), but since adding the Mature category it's been anything-goes again.