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TV content ratings that are inaccurate?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
Definitely. Sometimes I wonder how they can leave out one of the descriptors. There are words you would think would require an L but I've seen shows use them and have no L. I've seen what I thought was violence but I guess for a TV-14 show it wasn't violent enough.
And it goes both ways. I've never seen proof but I've seen shows with very little bad language use an L when there is a great deal of violence, for example. I have this theory they do that because there is so much violence they'd otherwise have no go to a higher age rating. I wonder how they did things back in the days before descriptors, because ABC will give perfectly clean G-rated children's movies a TV-PG. You can get a plain vanilla TV-PG for content that really isn't family-friendly and should definitely have descriptors.
It's a cartoon. People don't die in cartoons. Elmer Fudd had one mission in life: To kill the wabbit. He shot Bugs Bunny, but Bugs never died.
Some of the violence in "Family Guy" is worthy of a V-chip rating. What is depicted would be fatal in some cases.
I don't see the TV ratings as inaccurate which The PTC wanted the ratings system to have L, V, S with the ratings and they still complain that it's flawed or inaccurate. I don't care if it's inaccurate I believe the ratings should be do away with if The PTC had there way TV14 would become TVMA if they had there way.
I don't get why "Pyramid" on ABC is TV-14. It's not dirty. "Family Feud" is often worse. They have some suggestive language in the categories abut that could easily be TV-PG-L or TV-PG-D,L.
I watched a movie on FX while I was in the mountains. FX allows two words that broadcast TV does not but they don't change the age rating from TV-14. For this movie, the rating was TV-MA-L with a "viewer discretion advised" as they came back from every commercial break, and probably at the beginning which I missed since my newspaper's listings weren't accurate. The L was, of course, necessary, but certainly not the warnings. I'm not even sure you needed TV-MA because several forms of one word were used a total of maybe three or four times, and I've seen broadcast TV (pre-Janet Jackson) use a form of that word with a TV-14. We're not talking last year's "Wolf of Wall Street" (which still bleeped one particular word).
I watched a movie on FX while I was in the mountains. FX allows two words that broadcast TV does not but they don't change the age rating from TV-14. For this movie, the rating was TV-MA-L with a "viewer discretion advised" as they came back from every commercial break, and probably at the beginning which I missed since my newspaper's listings weren't accurate. The L was, of course, necessary, but certainly not the warnings. I'm not even sure you needed TV-MA because several forms of one word were used a total of maybe three or four times, and I've seen broadcast TV (pre-Janet Jackson) use a form of that word with a TV-14. We're not talking last year's "Wolf of Wall Street" (which still bleeped one particular word).
Irrespective of the ratings, basic cable allows "s**t" and "a**h**e" to be aired, IIRC. I recall that in the 90s, ABC allowed the "A" word, and a lot of semi-nudity on NYPD Blue, but that ended after a few notorious incidents, when the nets became worried that the FCC was cracking down. Basic cable also allows 'sidal' nudity, but not front or back nudity.
There was also gross humor in Nickelodeon's Ren & Stimpy. However, that was in the 90s, and on a cable network for kids. Also, I haven't seen TeenNick/NickSplat air the show (but then again, it has gross humor) in a while.
Before the Janet Jackson incident, I remember several cases of back nudity on network programs. Now one had a TV-MA rating. I think it was a TV movie. Another was from a distance on UPN.
Something happened on "Pyramid" last night that would justify a TV-14, but only because it was worse than the usual. The nurse said something that got bleeped, which wouldn't have been a problem in itself, but the category and certainly at least one of the correct answers was naughty.
I'm unclear on who makes the final decision RE: a TV rating. It's not like the MPAA and theatrical movies, where there are a limited number of releases, and time to mull over the rating decisions, and for the filmmakers to make changes. I assume there are still "Standards and Practices" departments who make decisions regarding what to censor. Thinking back to the 70s when content was more typically censored - a lot of stuff was still allowed. When Bob Eubanks asked the Newlyweds a question about "Making Whoopee," everybody knew what he was talking about. Censoring bad words is easy, but censoring content is much more complex, and depends upon your viewpoint, and tolerance for sexual content, violent content, etc.
I'm pretty liberal when it comes sexual content where I draw the line would be skinamax in primetime but otherwise have no problem with sex on TV and violent content as well. I just believe that it's up to the parents to use parental controls and other tools than the government telling the networks what should or shouldn't be on like the groups want The PTC & 10 Moms oh I mean not 1 Million members Moms since they support censorship and support the nanny state. I could go on and on about this topic but I'll end it now.
Someone named Lisa on "Laugh-in" back in the early 70s would say, "Whoopee!" a lot. She wore a trench coat and apparently nothing else except a hat and shoes. She was the Whoopee reporter or something. I had no idea what she was talking about. I didn't get a lot of the naughty humor on that show.
don't forget, the MPAA rated several movies that would get a R or PG-13 rating in today's world a PG rating back them. the Smokey In The Bandit franchise if those movies came out today would be a PG-13 movie and Smokey and The Bandit part 3 (the one that had Snowman aka Jerry Reed play the Bandit instead of Burt Reynolds aka the real Bandit, but yes, Burt did a brief cameo in that too) would had gotten a R rating due to raunchy sexual behavior in one scene involving some people in a hotel as well as a scene at a nudist picnic, those two scenes alone would insure a R rating instead of PG or today's PG-13 rating.
..and there was the movie GREASE. A lot of people felt should had been rated R instead of PG it was given only because there were scenes of people smoking cigarettes. That's it !! I think in the end it was re-rated PG-13 but still lot of people felt it should be given an R.
TV ratings I wonder if this is true...
Rock music is given a TV-PG while country music gets a TV-G. Let's see here if I were a pop singer and I go the Disney Channel and sing stupid stuff but not offensive it gets a TV-PG but if I were a country music singer and sing about beating my wife and drinking beer THAT is a TV-G ??? That is messed up.
As a parent I have seen quite a few programs where I cringed at the TV-PG rating.
Would not have let my kids watch them. I suppose its in the eye of the beholder.
Another government program that failed to do what it promised.....Imagine That!
Would not have let my kids watch them. I suppose its in the eye of the beholder.
Another government program that failed to do what it promised.....Imagine That!
Not exactly a "government program." More of a partnership:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Parental_Guidelines
When was this? Rock is usually TV-14 and country TV-PG. Country hasn't been G-rated in several years.
About the only "naughty" humor on Laugh-In was when Dan Rowan would toss Dick Martin a suggestive lead-in about his date "the night before". It never went much further than that. There was a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor but I would not have classified it as "naughty". Even the bikini shots were "tasteful".
Oh, that's good to know. But Dick did introduce himself in a naughty way in clips I saw from later years.
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