I used to watch "Dr. Quinn". There was boxing in one episode but the rating was TV-G. No big deal because boxing violence isn't really violence. Well, it was in this case.
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The "flashing lights" warning is because in some instances it is possible for flashing or strobing lights to trigger seizures in some people. Since that one has a medical reason, I think it is good that they include that warning whenever it could be a concern.
Wang Chung's music video "Everybody Have Fun Tonight".
It is. Watch episode X of series Y on network A and you see a TV-G ratings shield. Watch the same cut of the same episode on network B and it has a TV-PG LV rating bug.
And parents are suppose to be able to use these ratings with software provided along with the TV. So how does it work when that happens?
In the analog era, the "V-Chip" system worked based on content rating data transmitted in the video signal's vertical blanking interval, similar to closed captioning -- regardless of any logos shown on-screen. And it even still works on 30-year-old VHS recordings of TV broadcasts (10:24 in the video):
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The MPAA's film ratings also depend on human judgment. My point was that unlike other systems, television ratings exhibit serious inconsistencies. If your response is that those inconsistencies are the product of imperfect human judgment, then mine is that better humans should be hired to make the judgments -- like the ones the MPAA seems to be employing. Otherwise, as my point meant to conclude, television ratings become farces that are useless to parents trying to make informed choices. They end up serving as little more than bones the industry can throw to the armchair propriety police -- to the types who're more motivated by the feelings they get from placing and having controls over others than in whether their grand designs are actually workable and beneficial.
The metadata fields each digital broadcast carries would only be able to represent one of the two visible ratings. The danger would be in the more permissive of the two being the one that's encoded.
Yep. A little over 30 years ago I was part of a morning show that had semi-regular drag queens on the air. They were funny, outrageous, and we even had them participate in a few promotions like the classic "free gas Fridays," and people were lining up to have guys in pumps pump their gas. When our competitor tried to "steal" our "Battle of the Sexes" benchmark, we had the drag queens take over the bit for a bit as "Battle of the Transsexuals." It was hilarious because at the end of the day, drag queens are entertainers.
I'm not surprised...because until recently, guys in dresses wasn't especially controversial when used in a comedic context. That goes back decades, to Milton Berle and old Bugs Bunny cartoons, and probably further back than that. In "The Flintstones", Fred & Barney where dresses, wigs, and makeup to get on a TV cooking show. In "The Jetsons", the machine that dresses them in the morning messes up and puts a dress of George. Musicians hide from the mob by wearing drag in "Some Like It Hot". Cpl Klinger tries to get out of the army by wearing a dress in "MASH". And none of it was particularly controversial, nor was it assumed to be unsuitable for children. It was just...good, fun entertainment, just like what you're talking about from that morning show.
Also Flip Wilson.
In fairness, a rabbit in drag is totally different. [/sarcasm mode]
