LOS ANGELES
ARE the ratings that Hollywood gives its movies becoming irrelevant?
The Motion Picture Association of America started rating films in 1968 to indicate suitability for children. Ever since, some group or another — whether of parents or politicians or filmmakers — has complained: Too broad. Too easily manipulated. Too arbitrary.
The association, financed by the movie studios, has occasionally bowed to public pressure and tinkered with its evaluation process. In 2007, for instance, it started considering smoking alongside sex, violence and profanity when assessing films.
But the ratings system is coming under fresh attack via the Web, and that may make bigger changes inevitable, some Hollywood veterans fret. Studios count a movie’s rating as one of their primary marketing tools, and they worry that any recalibration would cut into their attendance — and profits.
The standard Hollywood ratings — G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17 — must now compete with all manner of Internet-based ratings alternatives, some of which are gaining new traction through social networking tools.
SceneSmoking.org, which monitors tobacco use in movies, issues pink, light gray, dark gray or black lungs to films, depending on how smoking is depicted. Kids-in-Mind.comranks movies on a scale of 1 to 10 in categories like “sex and nudity” and “violence and gore.”
Movieguide.org issues ratings from a Christian perspective. A “+4,” or “exemplary,” means “no questionable elements whatsoever.” A “-4,” or “abhorrent,” means “intentional blasphemy, evil, gross immorality.”
Easily disseminated on the Web, these alternative services are becoming scrappy competitors to the Hollywood voice of authority.
Jack Valenti, who ran the M.P.A.A. for 38 years and created the ratings system, used to call people who complained about the system “C. W.’s,” or constant whiners. Joan Graves, chairwoman of the organization’s Classification and Ratings Administration, listens more patiently to complaints, but is no less emphatic in her stance: the ratings system is not broken.
“If we tried to respond to the demands of every special interest group, we would shoot ourselves,” she said in an interview. “That doesn’t mean we can’t improve,” she added. “We are always on alert for ways to make tweaks so that ratings are more informative or more realistic.”
Grass-roots ratings sites do not mute the association’s voice, Ms. Graves said. “People complain when they are surprised, so the more information they have, the better,” she said.
But she says the sites are one reason her organization is striving for a more consumer-friendly online presence, noting that a redesigned M.P.A.A. site will appear in coming months. The goal is to be more informative about why movies receive certain ratings. “We want to be more transparent,” Ms. Graves said.
In 2006, the association introduced a service called Red Carpet Ratings, a weekly e-mail blast intended to make it easier for parents to get official ratings information.
Many advocacy groups have complained that the PG-13 rating, which cautions parents but does not restrict entry, is inadequate. In response, Ms. Graves says the association has talked about dividing the R rating into new categories. She also says that “there might be a need to develop a 15 rating,” for movies not appropriate for children under that age.
But financial forces are at work against any changes. If the difference between a PG and a PG-13 rating can be tens of millions of dollars at the box office, the last thing studios want is to slice the pie thinner. Theater owners are reluctant to changes for the same reasons, and would need more employees to enforce, say, an under-15 restriction (with school ID cards, learner’s permits and parents offering proof of age).
Hollywood created ratings to prevent government policing of its content. To determine ratings, the association uses a board of 10 to 12 parents of children ages 5 to 17, with no person staying longer than seven years. Although all the participants live in the Los Angeles area, their geographic backgrounds and ideological views vary, Ms. Graves said. A studio can either accept the rating it is given or ask what editing would be required for a less restrictive one.
The Internet has started to pick away at the M.P.A.A.’s authority in other ways. Consumers can now easily look up the ratings that Hollywood movies receive in other countries, where studios exert much less control. “I Am Legend” and “Cloverfield” were both deemed PG-13 at home, for instance, but Britain slapped both with a 15 rating.
Such disparity was recently brought to the forefront by Universal Pictures’ decision to release multiple versions of “Brüno” in Britain to get around ratings restrictions there.
Bloggers, with a hunger for minutiae, have also started to report when studios try to make minor edits to get a less restrictive rating. The filmmakers behind “Brüno,” the raunchy comedy about a flamboyantly gay fashionista, used this strategy; the pixilation of some penises, among other small cuts, ultimately sneaked “Brüno” under the R wire.
Last week, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood a Harvard group with an e-mail list of more than 30,000 people, started a Web petition against the M.P.A.A.’s PG-13 policies, which it sees as too lax. The group wants the Federal Trade Commission to step in, to ensure that PG-13 movies are marketed only in ways consistent with the rating.
“We think there is a critical mass building against the M.P.A.A. on the Web that will hopefully result in major changes to its ratings practices,” said Susan Linn, the advocacy group’s director.
Posted by notinthespotlight 
The semantic Web has long been heralded as the future of the Web. Proponents have said that Web experiences will some day become more meaningful and relevant based on the AI-esque computational power of natural-language processing (NLP) and structured data that is understandable by machines for interpretation.
The faces and leaders of Occupy Wall Street
2012/02/02Dear OWSers:
I’ve written down some of my observations and thoughts regarding organizational structure to a thread on one of OWS listserv. Then I realized this is a much broader question that might benefit from mind share from larger group. To respect the individuals who posted the earlier comments reacting a particular event, wihtout losing the context of my initial response, I’ve included their comments but removed their names and emails. I believe their comments are of general value to OWS as well.
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There is a deeper issue here I think, and this is not the first, and sure won’t be the last time the issue of hijacking or co-option rises. And this is not unique to OWS. If OWS does not have effective interfaces to the outside world of the equivalent set of faces and leaders, the outside world will choose for OWS. Electing a dog being our leader is cute, but may not really solve some of the real and perceived problems from which we are seriously suffering.
Spokesperson-less and leader-less have been quite powerful in making people feel they are listened to, and effectively lowered the entry barrier for participation when OWS had over 900 US cities, and some 1200+ encampment last fall (and nearly double that number globally). I believe this was essential to part of the magic of last fall.
Once encampment got down to 60 after nation-wide raids, our working groups, and affinity groups have proven to be very difficult for people to get involved in. The impact of the winter season can not explain away the difficulties of getting more people involved. At the meantime, OWS faces what every movement historically faces, the emergence and evolution of faces and leaders of the movement. The faces of the movement were part chosen by outside media, and part self-selecting of those more ready and capable of being spokesperson. The leaders of the movement often emerge from nothing more or less than 3 typical sources of legitimacy - hereditary/God-given (doesn’t apply to OWS), charismatic (also making them the faces of the movement), and organizational.
Our current dominant myth of being leader-less, and face-less functions in some strange ways as far as I can observe
* those who believe this is necessary for the inclusiveness and low entry barrier, tactically use it as a necessary myth for expansion and growth of the movement.
* newly radicalized activists who are not familiar, let alone experienced movement organization – anarchist or not – took this approach to heart. Such a culture does put a check on traditional fame, power, and ambition both on outside figures and OWS home grown faces and leaders.
* faces and leaders in effect, do exist. The influence of small groups of individuals is great compared to the overwhelming majority of OWS activists. And these influencers will evolve depending on how they balance the somewhat unique current OWS internal political culture (“leader-less”, ”face-less”, GA, Spokes, WGs, AGs) as well as typical ways to maintain and
grow their power – institutionalize charismatic leader, and grow organizational strength. But different from other organizations, under our current structure and dominant internal culture, these faces and leaders are not accountable. They, as well as outside celebrities and powerful groups, may be generally being the subject of push-backs and even of suspicion given this current culture; but they just need to separate the inner working of their respective power base from the more internally public political culture. Though difficult, it is not necessarily more difficult than being structurally and systematically accountable for being the faces and leaders of the movement. Counter-intuitively as it may seem, the consequence is that these de facto faces and leaders are hidden in the movement, but not only they are visible to outside world; but where there is a void in faces or in leadership, the outside world will choose for OWS.
* there are those who genuinely believe in this as morally and political correct organizational culture, have such a resistance to leaders and faces that despite their charisma and organizational skills, they run away from any hint of being in the position of influence for a sustained period of time. Historically, this distaste in more typical organizational politics prevented good leadership candidates from seizing the leadership positions. Some would argue that idealistic movements have failed in such situations when the movement are hijacked by faces and more disciplined organizations that are not true to the ideal of the movement, but more interested in the limelight or naked power. True great leaders are heads in the cloud and feet on the ground types – a near impossibly combination. Putting in the words of the founding father of sociology Max Weber (in his seminal work Politics as a Vocation), one should subscribe to both normative rationality, and instrumental rationality; in my interpretation, stay true to the ultimate ideal but also stay within the game. There is also Buddha’s version, when he said that let me be the one to go through the inferno.
May be the open, transparent, consensus based form of GA should be kept for re-occupation, marches, and other forms of easy movement participation; but a more disciplined organization with coordinated actions, policies, messages, and organizational hierarchy can be developed. A leader or a spokesperson who is openly held accountable; and who remains in that position of influences as long as he/she delivers the results and being held accountable for both successes and failure – leadership for result as oppose to leadership by position power seem to be a good thing; and when done right, it would not exclude the power of other spontaneous self-organizing. I fear that without effective organization, we would not
be able to turn the great moment of the last fall into a movement that comes closest to our shared ideal. For influences in this moment will continue to go to the spokespersons, charismatic leaders, and organizational strongman (strong person), both home grown and from outside. And this current culture will make even more difficult of potential great leaders to actually compete for leadership position. I may not be a good student of anarchism and strict horizontal organization and strict direct democracy and complete consensus process. Being in OWS in the early days have taught me a lot. I hope other good students of history and anarchism can show me a way as a convincing alternative to more typical
organizational structure that can sustain and grow a movement of the duration, size, and impact that most of us and our sympathizers hope for.
Shen Tong
On Jan 30, 10:45 am, wrote:
Wow. Seriously, wow. This is a pretty serious incident of overstepping. I mean, a little piggybacking is one thing, but this is a hijacking.
> On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 10:18 AM, wrote:
so wait …who’s calling these SPRING ACTIONS for OWS? and How come neither OUTREACH or MOVEMENT BUILDING was consulted? In fact which OTHER working groups were besides OCCUPY THE DREAM AND HOOD ?..and neither is a WORKING GROUP
DAY OF CONTACT:
> > ——————————
> > OCCUPY WALL STREET TO HOLD “STATE OF THE OCCUPATION ADDRESS” TONIGHT AT
> > 7PM
> > * * *
> > OCCUPIERS & ALLIES WILL ANNOUNCE SPRING 2012 ACTIONS AS PART OF LAUNCH
> > EVENT FOR NEWLY PUBLISHED PROPAGANDA BOOKLET, *THE DECLARATION OF
> > OCCUPATION OF NEW YORK CITY*
> > *[NEW YORK, NY] Occupy Wall Street* will hold a “State of the Occupation Address” tonight at *7pm at > > in New York City*.
> > A panel of occupiers, journalists, and allied affinity groups will revisit the Occupy actions of the fall and announce major events planned for Occupy
> > for Spring, 2012. Panelists will include *Dr. Benjamin Chavis*, former
> > assistant to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and co-founder with *Russell
> > Simmons* of *Occupy the Dream*; *Allison Kilkenny*, contributor for *The
> > Nation, In These Times* and co-host of Citizen Radio; *Malik Rhasaan*,
> > co-founder of *Occupy the Hood*; *Rachel Schragis*, designer of the Flow
> > Chart of the *Declaration of the Occupation of NYC