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Nobody important advocates censorship in America -- after all, only Communists and Nazis would censor books, newspapers, music, movies and broadcasts -- but it happens anyway.
In and of themselves, movie ratings and record-warning
labels are harmless. A PG-13
or Parental
Advisory: Explicit Lyrics
is nothing more than a
compressed opinion, like ** 1/2
or two thumbs
up.
However, the American marketing machinery substitutes these ratings for independent judgment.
For instance, many newspapers have refused to advertise X-rated movies -- which is their right. Further, as a one-time manager of an adult theater, I can assure you that you can safely ignore at least 99 percent of these films and remain confident that you have not missed a single frame of redeeming social value.
But there are exceptions. X-rated Midnight Cowboy
won the 1969 Oscar for best picture. I doubt that the
Greeley Tribune's advertising policy meant to exclude an
outstanding and popular movie from the newspaper's columns,
but that's what happened because of a policy based on
ratings, rather than individual judgment and taste.
No governmental board of censors ever banned Midnight
Cowboy.
But if you didn't know that a movie was playing
in that pre-VCR age, you were effectively prevented from
seeing it. It might as well have been banned.
The Tipper Gore warnings on recorded music lead to the same sort of evil. Rather than form their own judgments and set their own standards about what merchandise is fit to stock, major retailers like Wal-Mart simply refuse to carry any tapes or CDs which sport the parental warning.
It's one thing if a local store owner listens to a song
and decides No, we don't want to sell that here.
It's quite another if it's a nationwide corporate policy
with the selection based on the opinions of some anonymous
ratings board somewhere.
In a city, there are independent specialty stores, but in the boondocks, we're pretty much stuck with the selection offered by the mass merchandisers who let ratings boards make their decisions for them.
And as chains of mall shops continue to grow and displace independent outlets, you run into the same problem in populated areas. What difference will it make whether a work is formally banned or not, if WaldenBooks or MusicLand or Mann Theaters or Blockbuster Video refuses to carry it?
In my formative years, I knew that the nearby chain drugstore didn't carry literature that I enjoyed -- magazines like the Realist, Evergreen Review and Ramparts. But there was Woody's Cigar Store downtown, which carried all that and much else in the way of subversion and black humor. These days, the independent shops downtown are an endangered species as the bland franchises -- willing slaves of the ratings system -- thrive in the suburban malls.
The problem isn't ratings; it's how the ratings are
misused. They're supposed to provide guidance so that, as a
parent, I can object if my children plan to see Love
Slaves of Lesbos,
or they want a CD of the Loathsome
Leather Lads with the hot rap hit Dis your folks before
you cut 'em up.
But thanks to the ratings and warnings, combined with the timidity and sloth of chains, I am effectively forbidden to see or hear anything deemed unfit for innocent 10-year-olds, even though I am a jaded 41. If that's not censorship, it will do until the real thing comes along.
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