Can you blame fans for snickering over TMP being rated G ?
- Thread starter Mutara Nebula 1967
- Start date
I may have already said this, but I thought the original poster was asking about fans today "snickering" over it in retrospect, not fans at the time.
Well I was 7 years old when I saw TMP and it seemed ok to me. The transporter victims screamed no more horrifically than Chekov did in Mirror, Mirror (or countless other episodes) and on the show you actually saw his tortured face, not anonymous blobs.
As for sexual innuendo, it was precisely that, innuendo. Not explicit, not lascivious, but then I also don't believe there's anything inherently wrong with sex. I remember hearing the line when I was seven, but it certainly didn't scar me in any way.
Simply put, TMP was rated G at the time because there was nothing unusually adult or offensive to prevent a General Audience of rational human beings from napping through it... I mean watching it! And no, I don't really think it's a boring picture.
This country, and the MPAA by extension has becoming bizarrely prudish when it comes to rating our entertainment and "protecting our children."
I don't think prudishness has anything to do with it, as I said earlier in the thread. As with most decisions in the entertainment industry, it's not about morals or politics or anything more complicated than money. It's just that the G rating has acquired a stigma of being only for kids, so G-rated movies don't attract as large an audience as PG and PG-13 movies do. Therefore, studios slip in enough violence or innuendo or profanity to get a PG rating for what would otherwise have earned a G, so that they can sell more tickets and make more $$$$$$.
I understand that. My point is that some here today believe that TMP should have been rated PG in 1979. Or worse yet, that if this identical movie were produced and released in 2011 that it would deserve a PG (such as the Director's Edition was rated) That indicates a change in attitude, since the studio specifically DID NOT add violence or profanity.
As with The Andromeda Strain, here is a film that would possibly be rated differently if released today as opposed to during the 70s, with no change in content.
Why would that be? Either the raters' concept of what is acceptable viewing for certain age groups has changed (based on subjective opinion or by sensing the 'prudishness' of today's society), or more specific rules and quotas have been put in place by the MPAA (perhaps now dictating that a couple sci-fi deaths or a bare breast are inappropriate for 'all audiences')
Yes standards change and evolve, and all I'm saying is that a movie being rated today seems more likely to be given a more restrictive rating (PG-13 or R as opposed to G or PG) than it may have received 30 or 40 years ago.
Gosh, I'd disagree with that. I think teen-oriented movies today have far more violence and rough language than they did before PG-13 came out. Today's production companies WANT the PG-13 for the most part, and throw in enough f-bombs and violence, and you've got it.
As far as ANDROMEDA STRAIN getting a G, it wasn't gorey, the nudity was non-sexual, and the terror was more psychological than action-oriented.
As far as ANDROMEDA STRAIN getting a G, it wasn't gorey, the nudity was non-sexual, and the terror was more psychological than action-oriented.
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Just because some people believe it would've gotten a PG rating today as is, that doesn't mean that's the case. Yes, the Director's Edition got a PG, but that's a different cut, and we know the reasons why that cut was rated differently. There is no actual evidence to prove the conjecture that the original theatrical cut would earn a PG rating today.
However, I looked at Wikipedia, and it says that "Many G-rated adult films have since been re-rated PG." (By "adult films" it means "mildly adult" films like TMP, 2001, The Odd Couple, and the like.) It's meaningless to argue a pattern from a single example, especially a nonexistent one, but if there are in fact multiple cases of former G-rated films being re-rated PG with no change in content, that supports at least that portion of your argument. (Wikipedia doesn't actually name any of those re-rated movies, but just for the sake of argument I'll concede the point.) It does not, however, prove your conclusion. In fact, the same article also states findings that directly contradict your assertion: a study by the Harvard School of Public Health determined that "today’s movies contain significantly more violence, sex, and profanity on average than movies of the same rating a decade ago." So in other words, movies that would've been R-rated a decade ago would be PG-13 today, movies that would've been PG-13 a decade ago would now be PG, etc. Which argues against your thesis that society is getting more prudish about movie ratings.
Actually that's not correct. Both G and R ratings are seen as harmful to a film's box-office success -- G films because they've gained a stigma as "kiddie films" since the '70s, and R films because age restrictions at theaters have become more strictly enforced in the past decade or so, and a large percentage of filmgoers are under 17. So studios strive to edit the majority of their films to earn PG and PG-13 ratings. Because no matter what you may think about cultural abstractions like prudishness, you mustn't forget that we're talking about a business here, something where the priority is making a profit.
Star Trek has, until the most recent movie, been a older children/young adult TV show. I'd estimate that the average age of it's fans when they first get into it is 16 with the range being between 12 and 25.
At long last the latest movie took the first steps to giving us a Trek for grown-ups, not just a Trek that grown-ups can enjoy.
At long last the latest movie took the first steps to giving us a Trek for grown-ups, not just a Trek that grown-ups can enjoy.
But that sweeping statement fails to look at what was occurring in each decade.
In its first US run, ST was known to be popular with university students, who tended to watch clustered in dorm rooms. Supposedly, long after the show was canceled, retro studies of the way Nielsen ratings used to be done showed that other groups (with disposable incomes) also watched the show and could have been targeted more accurately by advertisers. TOS wasn't the total flop the old ratings claimed it was.
When it went into early prime time, stripped, syndication in the US in the 70s, TOS gathered a totally different demographic into fandom: young families, kids watching TV between homework and dinner, alternative programming to the nightly news, etc. Hard on the heels of that, TAS came to Saturday mornings, the traditional kids-only timeslot.
By the time of TMP, the university students from the 60s were parents of young families themselves. Now you were seeing cases where whole families used to watch ST on TV together, and other situations where one lone ST fan assumed he or she was the only one in the world who felt that way - and some of those found new "families" amongst organised ST fandom.
TNG, being a prime time, first-run syndicated show, became very popular with young families. It also created a huge group of the general public who would, for a few years at least, identify as ST fans. Tie-in toy and book sales skyrocketed, but this peak was going to have to plummet at some point. And it did...
... The thing to remember about DS9, VOY and ENT was that in many places, esp. internationally, those first-run shows were often screening in late-night timeslots. This eliminated chances for families to watch the show together, or to gather in groups of new, young fans. Even the action figures were now being aimed at adult collectors, not kids.
Paramount's biggest missed opportunity was not spinning off Wesley (or later, Nog) into an animated Starfleet Academy TV series. I still think that CBS should look at animated possibilities, maybe tempting JJ's cast to commit to voicing their characters in an Academy-set prequel series?
That was never its intention. Gene Roddenberry's specific goal when he created the show was to make it an adult drama, a break from the usual formula of science fiction shows aimed at young viewers like the Irwin Allen shows. And TOS was the NYPD Blue of its day, constantly pushing the envelope in terms of sexual content, bare skin, and mature themes. The producers' battles with the censors were epic. As Therin says, it didn't really gain a young audience until it was in daytime syndicated reruns and had an animated continuation.
I have no idea where you're getting that. The '09 movie, if anything, is somewhat less mature in its sensibilities than most previous Trek series.
That may have been Roddenberry's stated intention but, as has been shown many times in the past, he wasn't above painting the turth with a nice coat of sweet smelling bullshit.
It appealed to who it appealed to. he may have intentioned it to appeal to millionaires & hookers but that doesn't mean that it did.
The only way that ST 09 could have been less mature than it's sensabilities is if the got Filmation to do the special effects.
We got people acting like real people. Kirk as a rebel at 12. Getting drunk, groping Uhura and being in a bar fight (all at the same time!). We have Spock sleeping with his star student. The list goes on. These are real people with real flaws, unlike Roddenberry's Stepford Trek.
Oh, come on. There is no way in hell that a kids' show in the 1960s would've had the kind of skimpy costumes and sexual content that TOS had. It's hard for us today to realize just how much TOS pushed the envelope of TV sexuality for its time. It was unambiguously an adult show, as much as any of its contemporaries.
That is what you consider mature???
Okay, now you're proving you don't know crap about TOS. It wasn't until TNG that Roddenberry tried to depict a "perfect" humanity. TOS characters were full of passion, anger, intolerance, and all sorts of character flaws.
Oh, come on. There is no way in hell that a kids' show in the 1960s would've had the kind of skimpy costumes and sexual content that TOS had. It's hard for us today to realize just how much TOS pushed the envelope of TV sexuality for its time. It was unambiguously an adult show, as much as any of its contemporaries.
That is what you consider mature???
Okay, now you're proving you don't know crap about TOS. It wasn't until TNG that Roddenberry tried to depict a "perfect" humanity. TOS characters were full of passion, anger, intolerance, and all sorts of character flaws.
I consider that sort of behavior realistic human behavior. Unlike the "We don't do ________ (fill in the blank) because we're so much more evolved."
Agreed that TNG was much more in the Stepford mold that TOS was. However, TOS also had it's moments of we're so much better people than we were a few hundred years ago (i.e. the viewers).
ST 09 showed Kirk getting drunk in a realistic fashon, including getting teh crap beat out of him. In TOS, getting drunk was shown as cute. "Oh look, Scotty's pissed. Isn't that sweet and so funny. Laugh at the funny man kids!" I've dealt with drunks before. Pine's version is much, much closer to realistic as opposed to teh Disney version TOS showed.
There's many similar situations.
Also, I Dream of Jeannie was a childrens show and Barbara Eden showed a fair amount of skin. Doesn't mean it was aimed at adults.
Therin of Andor said:
A long-held legend Roddenberry propagated about the series that seems to be false. An excellent article on the subject (amongst others) can be found here.
You're right about targeting kids being Paramount's next logical move if they want to mantain Star Trek as a franchise. George Lucas has already figured that one out, producing the animated Clone Wars series for kids while pushing back the live-action series for adults again and again.
And that is the premise of this thread, that perhaps TMP deserved a PG rating instead of the G it received. I don't agree with that opinion, but seeing that a rating is a subjective opinion, there is no right or wrong answer. There's also no way to know if any film would be rated differently today than it was originally. I don't necessarily believe that it would, only that it would be more likely. In either case, I don't feel that the content warrants more than a G rating.
That said, right or wrong, I don't believe any film showing a bare breast in the manner of 'The Andromeda Strain' would receive a G rating today. Again, only my opinion. So perhaps that film was a singular rating anomaly and not evidence of a change in values.
I certainly haven't done any academic research into ratings, merely stating an opinion.
You keep bringing up box office returns and how the studio's strive to achieve PG or PG-13 ratings. I agree and have not argued to the contrary. It is generally in the studio's best financial interest to avoid G and R ratings, and of course they make efforts to achieve that. I don't understand why you think I'm saying otherwise.
That is what you consider mature???
Seconded. To me that was taking Trek down to the lowest common denominator to appeal to a larger audience. It did not make it a mature movie.
Seeing a kid driving a car off a cliff just to rebel did not make Kirk feel more realistic or mature. To me it was just beating the viewer over the head with the fact they wanted Kirk to be "cool". Spock and Uhura was shaking things up because they wanted a change, and also to shoehorn the obligatory Hollywood romance into the story.
Making characters flawed does not make them deep, and making something exclude younger audiences does not make it mature.
Epic? Based on what? Gene Roddenberry's self-serving stories about supposed network clashes?
I've already pointed out on other threads that there were other shows contemporary to Star Trek that pushed boundaries much harder and farther that Trek ever tried. Lead black characters on I Spy and Mission: Impossible. Outright on-air attacks on Vietnam, the Nielsens, and even the President Johnson (and later Nixon) on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (which went down in flames after three seasons despite being a top-rated series precisely because Tommy Smothers declared his own network the enemy and woudn't back down over content...that was epic). Heck, Laugh-In probably showed way more skin than Star Trek ever did, if you want to go by that measure.
Star Trek wasn't the NYPD Blue of its time. Sure, it was more daring than the majority of the pablum on the air, but neither was it the most daring. It was hardly this epic progressive thing that legend's built it up to be. It was generally safe and harmless, and the "controversial" things it did were few and far between.
I think in terms of sexual content the battles with the network censors could fairly be characterized as epic. Roddenberry's stories about battling the censors are of course self-serving (you list a number of great examples about how other programs pushed the envelope further), but in terms of sex, it seems that the censors at NBC were a real obstacle. Inside Star Trek: The Real Story describes at least one case of the producers including extra sexual content they knew would never get by the censors in order to get some semblance of what they wanted to the screen.
The book also suggests that "The Cage" wasn't rejected for being "too cerebral," but, rather, for its eroticism (specifically the Orion slave girl).
The book also suggests that "The Cage" wasn't rejected for being "too cerebral," but, rather, for its eroticism (specifically the Orion slave girl).
I don't recall Roddenberry pushing that barrow particularly, although he did know TOS's popularity with university students due to his lectures.
The article you quote has NBC saying “Our programming is aimed for balance, diversity, with strong leaders, such as 'Bonanza' and 'The Dean Martin Show', which appeal to all age groups” and ST's problem was that it wasn't popular enough with "all age groups" in that time slot because other networks' shows were rating better. NBC was seeking "youth appeal", and yet they started burying TOS late on Friday nights.
Yes, ok, demographics were being looked at, but wasn't it that the advertisers started using the information to more accurately target ads at the specific groups watching the shows after TOS ended its initial run.