..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

Like you, I lose very little sleep over controversies surrounding ratings of content in movies, television shows and video games. Parents seem not to mind them, the brief descriptions accompanying the movie ratings are useful to teenage boys looking for a spot of T&A, and anything that keeps Congress from meddling in the entertainment industry is jake with me.

Mainstream directors and studios appear to have figured out how to work around the system, while indie filmmakers no longer need fear the kiss of death once associated with going out un-rated or with a NC-17. Moreover, the now-accepted practice of issuing a director's-cut DVD of a severely truncated theatrical release, day-and-date, alongside the one bearing its original rating, prevents Blockbuster and other national video chains from shutting off the revenue stream to distributors of movies for grown-ups.

Thanks to the safe havens offered by HBO and Showtime, purveyors of edgy television fare also have been allowed the freedom to find a market for their talents. The stunning success of such cutting-edge shows as The Sopranos, Sex and the City, The L Word, Queer as Folk and Deadwood has provided the incentive for second- and third-tier programmers to take chances on The Shield, Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me and Chappelle's Show.

Likewise, TBS has found success among viewers in key demographics with its sanitized version of Sex and the City. That's not because it's somehow been made better in the editing process. It's just that not everyone who enjoys listening to Carrie rhapsodize on her Manolo Blahnik shoes also wants to hear Samantha espouse the curative powers of oral sex during prime time. (A&E recently agreed to ante up $195 million, as well, for the right to air edited reruns of The Sopranos, beginning in 2006.)

With the annual E3 convention on tap next week in Los Angeles, the question of content ratings also is likely to re-addressed by panelists, keynote speakers and reporters. Of the 10,969 titles listed on the Entertainment Software Ratings Board's website, 882 are intended for sale only to consumers 17 and older (of this number, 18 are intended for adults only). Controversies over the distribution of the most violent and misogynistic games tend to erupt when they're found in the collections of known felons, providing fodder not only for legislators but also for the writers of Law & Order and other ripped-from-the-headlines TV shows.

No one system is going to meet the demands of every disparate special-interest group. Liberals fear that decisions made by ratings boards already have had a cooling effect on creativity and freedom of expression. Conservatives argue that the rating icons don't go far enough in their descriptions of questionable language, sexual innuendo and violence. Parents in the vast middle have largely ignored the debate entirely, relying instead on their own intuitions and the common sense of their children. No comment, on the latter.

Nonetheless, the credence given content rating by retailers, parent groups and key members of the creative community has provided a buffer between Congress, Hollywood and those who desire more draconian controls. And, not everyone in Hollywood is complaining.

George Lucas, for example, has publicly welcomed the PG-13 tag put on Stars Wars: Episode 3, acknowledging that it probably will be too intense for younger viewers. Others have found that a guaranteed R of NC-17 accords them the freedom to create adult material, knowing a controversy won't erupt over too far-reaching a marketing campaign. Still others find commercial value in being accorded one rating over another.

Everyone's appalled, of course. when some depraved teenager opens fire on his classmates. Thank goodness, though, these outrages have yet to become as common as, say, Senior Prank Day or scandals involving contestants on American Idol.

Nonetheless, from my point of view, the various systems remain porous enough to provide easy pickings for an idea-starved columnist on an extremely dry day. While other columnists are preparing for E3, the TV upfronts. their Cannes vacations or are dining out on the poor start for Hollywood's summer (let's wait for Star Wars to open to anything less than $50 million before panicking), I'm taking the simple way out.

Today, class, let me describe for you a rather bizarre glitch in the ratings accorded some newly released DVDs.

Last month, I asked my film students at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas to make a critical comparison between the original 1966 version of Alfie and last year's re-make. At some point during the discussion, I noticed that the newly released DVD of the Michael Caine drama had somehow retained the PG awarded it in 1972. (Before the MPAA instituted its ratings system, in 1968, films awaiting distribution first had to receive a Certificate of Approval). Meanwhile, Paramount's far less shocking re-make was sent out with a R, for sexual content, some language and drug use.

This meant that any 12-year-old fan of Jude Law -- denied access to the new version, but intrigued by the story as described in the extensive marketing campaign -- could walk down to the local video store on Dec. 29. and pick up a copy of the 1969 Alfie. If so, that fan might have noticed that it wasn't any sort of cheeky comedy, with lots of hot American actresses and groovy music. While Caine's Alfie was clever enough, he also had prehistoric notions about the place of women in his life, and his charm was always used in the service of his penis.

As noted in a BBC review, Alfie's casual promiscuity is not without repercussions, and the most powerful sequence comes when he is forced to arrange an illegal abortion for one of his mistresses. The worst that can said of Law's Alfie is that he was a bit of a player, and he allowed himself to be seduced by his best buddy's girlfriend. The bigger crime was releasing this tepid re-make into theaters, instead of shipping it straight to video stores and cable networks.

Truth be told, most 12-year-olds head straight for the new-releases section of their local video emporium. The more adventurous among them wouldn't rent any movie older than Clueless.

But, fair is fair. If the MPAA is going to penalize with an R any new movie that dares drop more than one F-bomb, expose a nipple for more than a fleeting moment or break the pelvic-thrust barrier during intercourse, then all films newly released into DVD ought to be re-evaluated, using the same criteria.

If such otherwise innocuous confections as the Bridget Jones duo can so offend the ratings board with their language and some strong sexuality that they received an R, then how can a film like Milos Foreman's adaptation of Hair go out as a PG? How is it that Robert Altman's M*A*S*H can still be rated PG, while a recent repeat airing of Saving Private Ryan was pulled from several ABC affiliates, because one station executive was afraid of being fined for the soldiers' soldier-like language. Thirty years after it was first released, Michael Ritchie's delicious beauty-pageant comedy, Smile, can be rented by anyone with a video card, while the comparatively skinless Heathers, Jawbreakers and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle requires the presence of a parent or guardian.

Strange, but true.

Conversely, how can the newly released DVD edition of Bambi maintain the G it received for a 1974 re-launch, even though the Disney classic has lost none of its ability to traumatize any kid whose parents might use it as a babysitter. If Bambi doesn't warrant a PG, then no kids movie does.

Not that I'm advocating the re-rating of all re-issues into video and DVD. That might add as much as a half-mill to the cost of every new title. God knows, with a bloodbath at the box-office looming on the horizon, I'd be the last person to ask the studios to spend a single red American tenth-of-a-cent for such consumer protection. Nor should they be required to voluntarily add that little box -- now can be found on the corner of newspaper ads, trailers and one-sheet posters -- to 30-year-old ratings for movies like Alfie and Hair.

No, that would be too easy. What I'm recommending, with my tongue firmly in cheek, is reform.

Let's combine the R and NC-17 ratings into one semi-restrictive category, and beef up the PG by specifying in a similarly large font what it is exactly that parents should be aware of when making their decisions. Get rid of formulaic guideline (two F-bombs equal an R, etc.) and force board members to think a bit before scribbling down a grade. Here, I would borrow from the representative-letter system employed by the video game industry (www.esrb.org/esrbratings_guide.asp), and leave little guesswork for consumers.

If this rather simple and obvious fix proved too difficult to institute, maybe the MPAA could try separate ratings panels for red and blue states; the Valley and everywhere else in L.A.; Upstate New York, Manhattan and the rest of the boroughs; college towns and cow towns; one for those who treasure culture, and another for those who pick up a pistol immediately upon hearing the word. The more the merrier.

It's also worth pondering this question: If the ratings system instituted by television networks to trigger V-chip software, and advise parents on content, was such a great idea, why don't more distributors of TV-to-DVD titles bother to add the ratings icons to their products? Some do, but most don't bother. A casual perusal of available titles on Amazon.com will show hundreds of unrated designations to every one Y, G, PG, 14, MA, not to mention D, S, L or V.

Network executives love to trot out these descriptors whenever they're pressed about questionable content by lawmakers, most of whom are too busy getting drunk at fund-raisers to actually watch prime-time television. As they're merely taking their cues from lobbyists for various conservative causes, our congressional leaders can't be considered the most learned of viewers. Their idea of progressive legislation is requiring cable providers to offer a la carte service, which wouldn't have as much impact on the sinner channels as it would on C-Span and other public-service providers. It also would allow special-interest groups to more closely focus their boycotts and economic sanctions on individual networks, like those owned by everyone's favorite whipping boy, Disney.

Duh.

Apart from grabbing the nearest star of a popular television show, and requiring them to tape the occasional PSA advising parents to pay attention to those nearly invisible doo-dads in the corner of their screens, the networks have never shown much enthusiasm for such ratings. After all, if viewers actually used the V-chips built into their sets, fewer eyes would find the commercials, and advertisers could demand a re-evaluation of the rates charged for 30-second spots. Yikes.

Stranger, perhaps, while the premium cable networks provide their subscribers with the most precise information about the content of series, specials and movies, their TV-to-DVD products also routinely dispense with such descriptors. For all the guidance provided on the
The L Word: Season One, for example, Showtime's often very explicit series might as well be Will and Grace. By contrast, while unrated, Chappell's Show: Season 2 carries a very clear parental advisory warning of mature content, and Scrubs: The Complete First Season retains its TV-14.

I tried to find out why TV-to-DVD packages aren't required to carry such ratings. I also wanted to learn how -- given all the new standards by which movies are judged -- a new-to-DVD movie from 1970 can maintain the same PG awarded in 1970, when it almost certainly would be given a R in 2005.

Were boards more liberal, then? Were audiences more savvy and less likely to be offended by cussing and brief nudity? Is the MPAA too busy fighting piracy to bother with issues pertaining solely to consumer interests? Is anybody, besides a columnist on the left coast, even remotely interested in seeing this issue (non-issue?) explored?

Although I'm still waiting for callbacks, I've stopped holding my breath.

If the networks, studios and distributors don't take content ratings seriously, however, why should we pay any more attention to them than we already do? Feel free to ignore that question.

May 13, 2005
- Gary Dretzka