University of Virginia Library

Violence Can Pass,
But Nudity Left Out

By George Wilkinson
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

A prodigious number of articles
have been written on the inequity,
and just plain stupidity of a movie
rating system which evaluates
films on the number of "obscene"
words and amount of nudity and
yet completely ignores brutality,
and violence. In examining the
G-GP-R-X system from this
viewpoint, one misses the less
apparent but no less important
question of the enforcement of said
ratings.

It is a proven fact that different
theaters enforce the present rating
system in a seemingly endless
variety of ways. Some theaters card
everybody, some nobody, some use
the discretion of the ticket
salesman, some follow the
manager's direct orders.

The obvious conclusion to be
drawn is that whatever ratings may
be used, there is an inherent
inequality in the system because of
the faulty method of enforcement
Whatever the Motion Picture
Association of America may say
the decision as to the morality of
any film depends solely upon the
"morality" of the theater
managers.

Inconsistency

Proof of this is apparent
everywhere. There is the
documented case of a couple
denied admittance to the R-rated
"Catch-22" and then admitted to an
X-rated Russ Meyer film a few
blocks away. Or the infamous case
of "Midnight Cowboy" where some
theaters wouldn't admit people
with draft cards while others didn't
bother to card sixteen year olds.

Two main veins of argument are
used by theater managers to refute
such claims. One is that the rating
system is only for the use of
parents in deciding what pictures
their younger children should see.

This argument is fine when one
deals with less than sixteen year
olds whose main mode of
transportation in most suburban
areas is their parents. However, any
driving-age teenager with a good
excuse, access to a car, and a free
afternoon or evening need not
listen to what his parents want him
to do.

Defending Innocence

This leads to the second major
pro-rating system contention. The
argument goes that theaters must
defend the innocent minds of our
car driving youngsters from the
evils of many of today's "immoral"
motion pictures and therefore
theaters discriminate in admittance.