When did movie rating begin?

Answer 1

Movie ratings are now around 80 years old. There's a very good article about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code

The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) actually began in 1922 according to their website (www.mpaa.org/aboutUs.Asp) to self-regulate, self-censor (they don't like to admit that) and approve movie content through a very strict code. In fact it was the organization that decided that even characters who were married couples were to have separate beds on screen, in part because the actors themselves were not married in most cases and there would be an appearance of impropriety....

Originally there as only an approved and not approved (became the "X" rating, X being only for sexual content). You either made movies according to the code, or threw out the scenes that violated the code, or you didn't get approved.

There were some odd results. According to the Wikipedia article, Warner Brothers was unable to make films exposing Nazi concentration camps because the code barred on screen violence, nakedness and the like prevalent in the camps.

After the war when newsreels came back with the reality of what had been going on, there was a mood change, although the 1950s had other issues in the form of the HUAC (House Unamerican Activities Committee) that attemped to hunt down "communists", many of whom were thought to reside in Hollywood.....

The code survived through the 1950s. In the 1960s Jack Valenti, as then President, concocted the beginnings of our present-day "rating system" that first included "R", so that there could be minor sexual activity and theoretically were age restricted. It was all to gain wider audiences for movies in part because of the stigma that an X rating gave to a film (and one reason why the "adult" film industry responded with the XX and XXX ratings), and to move away from the strict code. And this opened the door to more "risque" movies at the box office. But one of the battles was over on-screen violence -- physical or otherwise -- originally not allowed under the code. It was allowed in "R" films and some parents objected. There were even lawsuits over it claiming the violence was traumatizing. Eventually Valenti caved and R came to include violence in general, and now there's even an NC-17 that suggests the film isn't obscene (per the mpaa website) but "most parents" wouldn't allow their children to see even if they were present......

Over the years the rating program has changed. Ostensibly to provide "guidance" to parents, it has the effect of ensuring the widest possible "appropriate" audiences for a agiven film that in turn supports box office receipts for the movie industry (it's better to get a PG-13 than an R for example because then you get the 12 and under group without parents being required to be present even if there are sexual themes and some violence....). It continues to avoid imposition of governmental censorhip on the movie industry. I've actually seen unaccompanied kids escorted out of R films. But if you read the current rating program (http://www.mpaa.org/FlmRat_Ratings.asp), I think after a while you might start to get confused as to where each one begins and each one ends. Kinda like the "color code" system for Homeland Security?

Answer 2

1930, then they redid the scale in 1966 and 1968.

Answer 3

Motion Picture Association of America film rating system was created in 1968.