MPA Rating System

**This page may be similar to TV Parental Guidelines. Which is the TV rating system.**

The **MPA Rating System** is the rating the United States uses to rate movies.

## Ratings

* G - All ages admitted.
* PG - Some material may not be suitable for children.
* PG-13 - Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
* R - Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
* NC-17 - No one 17 and under admitted

## Rating components

**The following text used outside sources to be created. Source is located on the bottom of the page.**

### Violence

Depictions of violence are permitted under all ratings but must be moderated for the lower ones. Violence must be kept to a minimum in G-rated films and must not be intense in PG-rated films. Depictions of intense violence are permitted under the PG-13 rating, but violence that is both realistic and extreme or persistent will generally require at least an R rating.

### Language

Snippets of language that go "beyond polite conversation" are permitted in G-rated films, but no stronger words are present. Profanity may be present in PG rated films, and use of one of the harsher "sexually-derived words" as an expletive will initially incur at least a PG-13 rating. More than one occurrence will usually incur an R rating as will the usage of such an expletive in a sexual context. Known as the "automatic language rule", the rule has been applied differently depending on the subject matter of the film. For example, *All the President's Men* (1976) received a general rating on appeal, despite multiple instances of strong language, likely because of its historic subject matter. The automatic language rule is arguably the rule that can most often be successfully appealed. The ratings board may award a PG-13 rating passed by a two-thirds majority if they believe the language is justified by the context or by the manner in which the words are used.

It is sometimes claimed that films rated PG-13 are only able to use the expletive *fuck* once to avoid an R rating for language. There are several exceptional cases in which PG-13-rated films contain multiple occurrences of the word *fuck*: *Adventures in Babysitting,* where the word is used twice in the same scene; *Antwone Fisher* which has three uses; *The Hip Hop Project*, which has seventeen uses; and *Gunner Palace*, a documentary of soldiers in the Second Gulf War, which has 42 uses of the word with two used sexually. Both *Bully*, a 2011 documentary about bullying, and *Philomena*—which has two instances of the word—released in 2013, were originally given R ratings on grounds of the language but the ratings were dropped to PG-13 after successful appeals. *The King's Speech*, however, was given an R rating for one scene using the word *fuck* several times in a speech therapy context; the MPAA refused to recertify the film on appeal, despite the British Board of Film Classification reducing the British rating from a 15 rating to a 12A on the grounds that the uses of the expletive were not directed at anyone.

This was satirized in the 2005 film *Be Cool*, in which the movie producer Chili Palmer (John Travolta) says: "Do you know that unless you're willing to use the R rating, you can only say the 'F' word once? You know what I say? Fuck that. I'm done." Often film producers will use the word for a scene of gravitas or humor and then blur out any further instances with sound effects.

Some forms of media are cut post-release so as to obtain a PG-13 rating for home media release or to feature on an Internet streaming service that will not carry films rated higher than PG-13. In 2020, a recording of *Hamilton* was released on Disney+ after cuts by Lin-Manuel Miranda to remove two of the three instances of *fuck* in the musical to qualify it as PG-13 under MPAA guidelines.

A study of popular American teen-oriented films rated PG and PG-13 from 1980 to 2006 found that in those films, teenaged characters use more and stronger profanity than the adult characters in the same movies. However, the study found that the overall amount of such language had declined somewhat since the 1980s.

### Substances

See also: Product placement § Tobacco

Drug use content is restricted to PG-13 and above. An example of an otherwise PG film being assigned a PG-13 rating for a drug reference (momentary, along with brief language) is *Whale Rider*. The film contained only mild profanity, but was rated PG-13 because of a scene where drug paraphernalia were briefly visible. Critic Roger Ebert criticized the MPAA for the rating and called it "a wild overreaction".

In May 2007, the MPAA announced that depictions of cigarette smoking would be considered in a film's rating. Anti-smoking advocates stated that the child-friendly PG rating was inappropriate for the 2011 Nickelodeon-animated film *Rango*, which included over 60 depictions of characters smoking.

### Nudity

Nudity is restricted to PG and above, and anything that constitutes more than brief nudity will require at least a PG-13 rating. Nudity that is sexually oriented will generally require an R rating. Since 2006, films have been flagged by the MPAA for carrying nudity. In 2010, the MPAA flagged three films specifically for "male nudity", precipitated by parental pressure in response to *Brüno*. In 2018, MPAA Ratings Chair Joan Graves clarified the MPA's position by stating that "we don't usually define as male or female usually, we just mention partial nudity or graphic nudity."

### Sex

The MPA does not have any explicit criteria for sexual content other than excluding sex scenes from G-rated films.

## References

1. ↑ From Wikipedia page "Motion Picture Association film rating system"