(July 2, 2015 at 12:27 am)Tiberius Wrote: Entertainment rating systems which use age limits (e.g. you *must* be over X years old) are bullshit, but I see value in rating systems which break the film content down further. If I had a 10 year old child and didn't know anything about a movie he/she wanted to go to, I would look at a rating system which told me how much sex / violence was in the film before making a decision on whether I wanted my child to see it. Rating systems should perform a purely advisory role.
I agree with the idea of the advisory role as it existed 20-30 years ago; however, with instant access to sites like Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB and others I don't find much justification for the practice. I neglected to mention that the trailers for every movie or game are easily accessed on YouTube. If a young impressionable gains access to media content a parent finds objectionable, the blame rests with the parent, not the provider. If movie producers and distributors self-police in this regard, more power to them; however, I think some of this is done out of fear that the government will step in if they don't.
The fact that media is so easily distributed and accessible on so many different platforms makes controlling access a challenge, but I haven't heard a compelling reason why it is the creator's or distributor's responsibility for ultimate consumption. The creator or distributor can go to whatever lengths they deem necessary to advertise that content shouldn't be consumed by an under-aged demographic, but it hardly seems reasonable to blame them when a porn video pops up on a 13 year-old's phone. I'm quite certain that the 13 year-old wasn't involved in the original point of sale. If he/she was, there are already laws on the books to punish the transgression. In my opinion there is no difference between this and the distinction made in the free speech vs. incitement argument.
