Mingle2 - Online Dating
Why? Because I include the words torture, dead, abortion, and kill. The first time I went, they also complained because I included the words zombie and abortion. Remember, this rating is based upon the appearance of the word, not context.
Back in the 1930's Hollywood set up what became known as the Hayes Office, which was actually a censorship office. Rules were set concerning all manner of things considered indecent, from the length of kisses to the absence of any kind of profanity. The reason? Why people might be offended? The most famous swearing on film occurred soon after the institutionalization of these rules - Clark Gable's last words in Gone With the Wind. Until the 1960's there was a conspicuous lack of realistic dialogue in film.
When Jack Valenti took over the MPAA after leaving the Johnson Administration, his first major accomplishment was abolishing the Hayes Office and instituting a rating system. The rating system has been remarkably successful, although the way ratings are assigned has changed over the years. Infamously, Midnight Cowboy was given an "X" rating because of the realistic portrayal of male prostitution. It still won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Today, it might garner a "PG-13". This is not due to what George Will loves to call "the coarsening of our culture" (I really hate that phrase). Rather, it is due to the stunning acceptance that reality and its depiction on film should move closer together. In reality, people use foul language. In reality, people appear nude in front of one another, and even sleep in the same bed. In reality, when people are shot, or stabbed, or strangled or fall off tall buildings, the result is often bloody (in the case of strangulation, there is also the voiding that occurs). While bullet holes have always appeared in film, their more realistic depiction in film today is as much a protest against violence as it is a pornographic enjoyment of it.
While I am a little hurt by my rating, I suppose I am in proud company. While it may indeed be a sign of the coarsening of our culture, I prefer to think of it as a protest against silly, arbitrary rating systems.
NB: The rating thing appears at an online dating site. I did not go there to check out chicks. That is just where it happens to be. Please, no jokes or questions about that, OK?
