New and Updated Moral Rating System

The rating system we've been using up until now has been very simple (a Moral Value score of 1-5), but it's been hard to be consistent on our ratings given that we just looked at a list of criteria and assigned a score that we felt fit best.  We've recently developed a formula for a Moral Value score to help us be more consistent and hopefully make our ratings a little more useful.  We appreciate all the inspiration and feedback we've received from family and friends on this.

The new formula is:

External Ratings Guides and Reviews

I thought I'd share some of the websites I use, both to check the objectionable content levels in movies and to get a feel for what the world thinks about them.

Information on Objectionable Content in Movies

Kids-in-mind.com has the easiest rating to understand. It uses a three number system to rate the amount of sex, violence, and language (in that order) that a movie contains on a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being the most offensive). For instance, Harry Potter 6 received a 4.6.3 rating.

Screenit.com is similar to the previous one, but has way too many ads. Like Kids-in-mind.com, it can sometimes be too detailed and you can get a false perspective of the movie by focusing on all the negative elements lumped together. They're (kids and screenit) usually right on when they rate movies as very offensive; it's the middle ground one's that they can sometimes be too picky on and take things out of context.

CommonSenseMedia.org gives a much higher level view of the content to be careful of and tries to match the age recommendation a little more precisely. In addition to violence, sex, and language it also rates the amount of drug use. This one along with kids tries to tell parents how they can talk to their children about the content they view in the movies.

USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) is a moral rating website (most similar to this one) that rates movies based on their moral value. It categorizes the films into those appropriate for all ages, those for adults and adolescents, and those for adults. After that you get movie types with content that could be be "troubling" to even adults and then those that are just plain morally offensive. Reading through their reviews, they don't tend to be as strict as we are and their reviews cover a much more comprehensive list of movies.

I don't believe it is necessary to see every movie and help others understand it's moral content. Most movies you can tell whether or not the content will be morally offensive just from the trailers or the actors (e.g., Adam Sandler or Jack Black) in the movies.

IMDB.com is an alright place to get info on movies. Their warnings on the content are user contributed and are sometimes just a cut-and-paste from one of the above sites. They provide a way to keep track of movies you've seen and allow you to give and track your own ratings. Its main purpose is as a database to find out actors and the movies they've been in, directors, producers, etc.

RottenTomatoes is the best I've found at aggregating film critics reviews and then using those reviews to categorize the movie as good or bad (giving it a fresh or rotten tomato). If 60% or more of the critics give it a fresh rating, it remains fresh; anything less than that is rotten. They don't single out the objectionable content. At most they throw in a blurb on why it was given the rating it received from the MPAA and then sometimes the critics will point out any unecessary negative content.

Some other sites that are worth a look into are:

• MetaCritic
• Michael Medved

Moral Ratings Guide

The following is the guide we have decided on to rate the movies that we watch. We'll mention the reasons why we gave the score we did. Remember, these ratings don't necessarily mean we liked or didn't like the movie, it's only based on its moral teaching ability.

1

• NOT virtuous or lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy
• Doesn't help you make right choices (teaches to make wrong choices)
• Good is portrayed as evil and/or evil is portrayed as good
• Vulgar, immoral, violent, or pornographic
• Not uplifting: do not feel good afterwards, have bad thoughts

Examples: Manchurian Candidate (1962), Disturbia

2

• Basically it's not uplifting, but may have some redeeming qualities to keep it out of the 1 category. Further clarification will be made in individual posts.
  
• Evil is portrayed as good and/or good as evil

Example: The Dirty Dozen

3

• Several things are not virtuous, lovely, of good report or praiseworthy
• May help you make right choices
• Some good is portrayed as evil or evil as good
• some vulgarity, immorality, and/or graphic violence throughout film
• not necessarily uplifting, but not a bad feeling, pretty neutral
• Generally is made up of comedies and action flicks

Examples: Serenity, As Good As It Gets, Get Smart, Live Free or Die Hard

4

• Contains an uplifting message, but a few elements detract from the film being entirely uplifting (e.g., William Wallace sleeping with the princess)
• Inspires to do good, but we didn't feel an overwhelming urge to do better (One Night with the King)

Example: Hudsucker Proxy, Braveheart

5

• Virtuous, lovely, good report, praiseworthy
• Helps you make right choices
• Good is good, evil is evil
• Vulgarity, immorality, or violence is only "depicted"*, not advocated or enacted
• Uplifting: Feel good afterwards, have good thoughts, inspired to live righteously

Example: On the Waterfront, Evan Almighty

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*We feel that to a certain extent evil things may need to be present in order to properly teach a moral lesson as long as the evil is portrayed in an appropriate balance and in it's true light (not just for entertainment). Orson Scott Card, in Moral Story Telling, says that evil can be presented in three ways:

1. Evil depicted by fiction (e.g., church leaders warning us of evils)
   
2. Evil advocated by fiction (e.g., persons encouraging crime, revolution, etc.)
   
3. Evil enacted by fiction (e.g., pornography)

As long as the whole movie doesn't advocate and in no way enacts evil, it can be considered moral. Look for later posts as we expound on this topic of what type of evil should be present in the cinema.