What purpose, other than of possibly historical interest, does it serve to put ratings on dvds?
To tell you the truth, I don't know. The MPAA has always been inconsistent with their rating decisions and it would be better off to abolish the MPAA and/or adopt a new rating system (the Canadian rating system, imho, makes more sense than the US rating system). I have no problem with nudity at all. Nudity is apart of human nature, why try to censor it up? Do people not see what is considered "nudity" when they go to the bathroom or take a bath/shower?
I was watching an E! True Hollywood Story on Fast Times at Ridgemont High last weekend and the MPAA told Amy Heckerling to edit out one shot of a male's penis or they will have an X rating. Their reason for the X rating was cause the penis is a "sexually agressive organ".
What I don't like is that the MPAA basically listens to complaints from parents. Language and nudity are more offensive than violence (I have no problem with violence, but would you really want your kid to see a shoot out?). Giving a film a rating due to amount of language is bullshit now. I hear little kids who have dirtier mouths than me (and that's a shock to some people, including myself). Hell, I go right into my high school, filled with teenagers ages 14 - 19 and I'll hear more colorful uses of the f word, the c word, the s word, and so on in a few hours than in most R rated movies combined. And with nudity, most teenagers see nudity let it be on the internet or in real life.
The ratings to me are unneeded. If you don't want your kid to watch a certain film, then don't let your kid watch it (ban the film from the kid if necessary). When I was younger, my mom told me what films I could see and what films I could not see till I was mature enough to view them. If all parents did the same, then I don't think the MPAA would be as strict.
and all pre-1968 films have NO RATINGS
My mom was telling me a story last weekend about Night of the Living Dead as I was buying the Millenium Edition DVD of it. She was telling me when she was 15 (1974), her friends and herself were trying to get into the theaters to see it, but the people who worked at the theater wouldn't let her see it. I remember that the film came out before the MPAA was established so it had no rating at all (I remember reading an article about the movie by Roger Ebert and when he saw it back in 68 there were kids [around 8 years old] all in the theater), but why would a theater not let in people who are 15 to see it, but years earlier anybody could see it (even without a re-rating, and yes that's a run-on sentence)? (Yes, Night of the Living Dead is one of the scariest films of all time, but the film has very little on screen violence (most of the violence happens off camera and I've seen PG-13 films that are worse in content.)
I wish the RIAA would do the same type of thing for music CDs.
Oh god.
