Professional Motion Picture Production and Distribution NEWS
New Research Finds Bias in Hollywood's Parental Guidance Ratings for Movies
By Staff
posted Mar 1, 2010, 12:21 |
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(College Park, MD) New research from the University of Maryland's Robert H.
Smith School of Business and Yale University School of Management finds films
from well-known producers and directors receive more lenient parental guidance
ratings by the Motion Picture Association of America than those produced by
independent distributors or unknown producers and directors, an advantage that
can lead to wider distribution and higher revenues at the box office. Researchers
also found films from directors with a history of producing "R"-rated
features consistently receive more restrictive ratings.
"Producers and distributors want lenient ratings for a bigger splash at
the box office, but sex and violence sell films," said David Waguespack,
assistant professor of management and organization at the Smith School and co-author
of the research. "Filmmakers that push the envelope, adding racy content
and more violence while avoiding a restrictive rating, have an advantage at
the box office."
Waguespack and co-author Olav Sorenson, professor of organizational behavior
at Yale School of Management, looked at the parental guidance ratings films
receive and how those ratings are determined by the Motion Picture Association
of America. The industry association classifies films based on the suitability
of content for children, assigning the familiar G, PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17 by
process of panel review and majority vote. Because children account for roughly
one-third of film receipts, movies with restricted ratings earn less, on average.
When comparing films with similar content, Sorenson and Waguespack found an
uneven playing field in the ratings game. They looked at data from Kids-in-Mind,
a Web site that provides parents with detailed information on film content,
and found a gap between higher and lower status projects in the assignment of
ratings to films. Films produced by major Hollywood studios, as well as those
involving big-name producers and directors, consistently receive less restrictive
ratings.
"According to our analysis, a film with a moderate degree of sex and violence,
for example a Kids-in-Mind score of 12, might be twice as likely to receive
an R rating if distributed by an independent rather than one of the major studios,"
noted Sorenson. "And that translates into profits. In our sample, films
with a PG or PG-13 earned 76% more at the box office than those with an R."
The researchers attribute the biases in ratings to three factors: power, or
influence, of the filmmaker or production studio; the "halo effect,"
or reputation of the producer; or what they dub proto-typicality – the
type-cast effect that has producers who typically receive a certain rating for
their work consistently receiving that rating, regardless of content.
The research will be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal Organization
Science.
Resources:
Robert H. Smith School of Business: www.rhsmith.umd.edu
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