Movie Ratings And Social Downfall

Movies and other media set a social moral standard for the culture.  Whatever the social moral standard is, the social morale will necessarily fall below that standard.  When the social moral standard that is set by the media is brought down, the social morale is also brought down. 

In the early 70’s movies began to try to be more relevant to the level of the social morale.  Long-standing taboo words were no longer taboo.  Inappropriate content was no longer inappropriate.  Honor and dignity was not glamorized.  Heroes were dysfunctional.  Relevance became the ideal.  The standard was lowered.  The social moral standard dropped.  Look at the social morale now compared to prior to the 70’s.

When movies had no ratings other than X for adults only, conscientious parents were upset that as much as 15% of the movies produced were unsuitable for children.  The movie rating system was initiated in the late 60's as a parental guide to movie content. 

Or was it?  Was the movie rating system initiated to advise parents, or was it a sales gimmick?  If movie ratings were supposed to sustain dignity and good taste in movies it backfired.  It opened the floodgate to filth in movies and the downfall of our culture.  After forty years with movie ratings, 85% of movies are now unsuitable for children.  And that is by a considerably looser standard than that of the 60's.

Most people agree that there should not be filth in movies.  But human nature is what it is.  Filth sells.  G ratings don't sell.  Wholesome family movies don’t sell without a PG rating.  Therefore otherwise wholesome family movies must have some measure of filth to qualify for the PG rating in order to sell.

If rating movies as a guide for parents did some measure of good, the amount of damage done to the level of decency and good taste in movies and the resulting mind pollutant damage to our culture is huge.  

Whether the abolition of movie ratings at this point would help clean up movies is a debatable issue.  I would think it would be a good thing to drop the ratings from advertising.  There are websites you can go to for information about content of movies.  All I solicit is public awareness and support of the sponsors and producers of movies without profanity.