Book Ratings

[TheFifthElement]

I'm against ratings full stop. I don't see how the government or any body appointed by the government can decide what is and isn't right for people to watch, read or otherwise experience. As far as suitability of content is concerned, parents should have both right and responsibility in that domain; how is a censor better placed to decide what my son is permitted to watch than I am? Do they know him? Neither do I understand what it is that supposedly 'magically' happens to a person when they pass their 12th, 15th or 18th birthday that equips them to handle violence, sexual content, bad language and so on.

Life isn't censored or rated. My kids hear bad language when they're out on the streets, on the bus, on the train, in the supermarket. Luckily for them they've not experienced violence at close quarters, but many children experience plenty of violence in the home or at school without the luxury of it being fiction. Plus there's the unrated news, which is fairly indiscriminate in depicting disturbing and violent and real scenes. As for sexual content...well, it'd be interesting to do a poll of parents and see how many have experienced their kids walking in the bedroom at an, ahem, inopportune moment.

I also wonder if watching and experiencing fictional situations prepares people for how they might best handle themselves if they encounter the real thing, as well as cementing the distinction between the fictional and factual world. So it's okay to wish your teacher dead, but in reality you know you're not going to do it. You might vent your aggression playing a first person shooter game, instead of slamming a fist into that annoying kids head. Fiction in book, movie, TV or game form, encourages the development of empathy both in recognising the humanity of other people, and recognising behaviour which is inhumane. Rating, to me, denies children access to necessary educational tools. It's a blunt instrument. I can't see how that can be a good thing.

[JBI]

Rating is kind of disgusting, and shouldn't be part of any scholarly pursuit. Lets think about it; really there are three kinds of books - a level 0, absolute trash, a level 1, meh literature - the kind that is a little interesting but not very noteworthy, and 2s, the kind of stuff classics are made of - really good works. Anything that says "Shakespeare is better than Spenser" is just an annoyance - they are both 2s, there is no point really comparing them like that, especially at the expense of real comparisons, that is, textual and cultural comparisons.


In that sense, we shouldn't limit what people read by age either - lets be honest, if it wasn't for the sex in books I probably wouldn't be as literate as I am today - lets just say I was a curious 14 year old.

It's not as if literature is pornography anyway - most books with naughty content usually require a basic level of literacy to understand anyway - that restricts them more or less to 13+ at any rate.

[Virgil]

I voted that it's fine to have catagorizations for films but not for books. I think a novel is way too complex for such simplifications as pointed out by several here. But books are to some degree catagorized as children's, young adult's, and adults.

I'm against ratings full stop. I don't see how the government or any body appointed by the government can decide what is and isn't right for people to watch, read or otherwise experience. As far as suitability of content is concerned, parents should have both right and responsibility in that domain; how is a censor better placed to decide what my son is permitted to watch than I am?

But how is a parent supposed to know what type of film it is without some sort of classification? I don't think "censor" is the correct word. They don't cut or restrict any movie, at least not in the US. They catagorize a film, anywhere from general audience to porn. You would want to know if you were walking into a porno movie, wouldn't you?

[Scheherazade]

In that sense, we shouldn't limit what people read by age either - lets be honest, if it wasn't for the sex in books I probably wouldn't be as literate as I am today - lets just say I was a curious 14 year old.

I don't think there would be any restrictions on a 14 years old... And most have other ways of discovering the "biology" than books

I voted that it's fine to have catagorizations for films but not for books. I think a novel is way too complex for such simplifications as pointed out by several here. But books are to some degree catagorized as children's, young adult's, and adults.

I am beginning to think that we are more worried about visual aspects than words, which is why there is a rating system for movies but not for printed material.

[OrphanPip]

You would want to know if you were walking into a porno movie, wouldn't you?

It would be an interesting surprise at least, but it could make a first date quite awkward.

[Virgil]

I am beginning to think that we are more worried about visual aspects than words, which is why there is a rating system for movies but not for printed material.

That was going through my mind as well.

It would be an interesting surprise at least, but it could make a first date quite awkward.

Might be the last date too, depending on the woman.

[TheFifthElement]

But how is a parent supposed to know what type of film it is without some sort of classification?

I agree, information is important, but classification gives very little information and in addition is restrictive. I still think the term censorship is appropriate as the whole concept of a restricted system promotes it. How many cuts do film makers make in order to guarantee that 15 certificate, instead of 18, or to get an 18 certificate when the movie would otherwise be unrated? Perhaps the situation is different in US, but certainly in UK the BBFC has the right to cut or ban a movie they don't deem suitable. There's some information about it here: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/statistics/

The situation may be different in the US, but I suspect that movies will be cut to meet rating - certainly there's some anecdotal evidence around that - see discussion here: http://www.avforums.com/forums/movie...d-than-uk.html and the MPAA's own website confirms that:

If a film is assigned a rating that a producer/director does not want, he or she may edit and re-submit the film for another rating.

http://www.mpaa.org/Ratings_HowRated.asp

[Emil Miller]

That was going through my mind as well.



Might be the last date too, depending on the woman.

There is an interesting short story by Graham Greene about a middle-aged man who takes his wife to see a pornographic movie only to discover that the male in the film is himself when much younger. They don't get more embarrassing than that.

[Petrarch's Love]

Good heavens, what would Coriolanus get rated?

In terms of why we rate movies/video games and not books, my first thought was that you have a lot less reaction time in a movie than in a book. If you're in a movie in which a split-second violent action can send a decapitated head flying toward the camera, splurting blood all over and followed by the cries and screams of men in batte being mutilated in various ways, then you're more or less stuck in a darkened theater. If you're reading the Chanson de Roland, you've got several stanzas of pre-battle build up and the ability to set the book down and get out of there the minute a sword first hits someone's neck, thus avoiding the extended descriptions of men being split from scull to groin by broadswords. I imagine it's this less immediate aspect of a book that makes the difference in the perceived need to impose ratings.

While I can certainly imagine there are some things I wouldn't want my young children to read--if I had young children--I can't even imagine how one would begin to go about rating books. If, for example, the criteria for rating were connected to incidents of violence in a story, there are any number of books aimed at children which might merit rather high ratings: the original Grimms Fairy Tales, for example, or lots of incidents in Roald Dahl's books. As someone else said, bookstore and library categories tend to already take care of a lot of potential issues that rating would be aimed at. You know a book from the "Romance" section might not be appropriate for a seven year old for example.

The idea of book rating reminds me of a school reading program we had at my elementary school. Each week all the classes in the school would go to the library and each child was supposed to select a book from the reading program section to read for the week. The idea was that you would read your book, answer some questions about it when you finished and then you would get a special sticker for being a good reader (I think there was some sort of small prize when you got a certain number of stickers). A very nice idea. The only problem was that they had arranged the books on separate color coded shelves according to each of the 6 grade levels (K-5) and you were only supposed to read books for your grade level. I happened to be an avid reader as a kid and a little ahead of where the books in the yellow first grade section were aimed, and so I quickly read through them all, found them rather boring for the most part, and could see some books I really did want to read up on the top shelf where the blue 5th grade books were. The problem was that the lady in charge of the program wouldn't let me read those because she said they were too advanced. Since I protested, it finally came out that part of the concern was not only that they might be beyond my reading skill level, but because a book like Little Women might be inappropriate for a first grader to read (I can only guess because somebody dies?) My mom finally talked to the lady and I got permission to read the blue level books, eventually including the forbidden Little Women (which I adored and sobbed over), but it did make me think that telling people what they are and are not ready to read inhibits part of the explorative fun of reading. Not to mention, who's to determine a rating? Little Women might get rated M for Mature.

[PabloQ]

Ratings of any kind are a form of censorship. They are an attempt to prevent certain individuals from partaking of a specific art form. The ratings on movies and video games are not that stringently enforced as a rule so it is a mild form of censorship. At the end of the day, someone is making a decision for someone else what is appopriate for that individual to view, play, or read. At the end of the day, parents should participate in their children's choices of movies, but it is the parent's choice to whether to take a child to see The Little Mermaid or A Clockwork Orange.

Lately, the ratings have been accompanied by text intended to help parents make informed decisions - contains nudity, graphic blood violence, langurage, etc. I prefer that type of information than an arbitrary rating. If one is okay with one's child watching bloody violence, but not seeing a booby, well one can decide.

I recently tried to limit my son's access to movies with bad language. He turned to me and said, "Dad, I ride the number 4 bus." The number 4 bus goes through the Government projects in our town and the Gangsta lads and lasses have a special brand of foul language. Apparently, there wasn't anything left that he hadn't heard. He's 15 and that's no surprise, but there are still graphic sexual images that we try to limit on television and movies.

Ratings provide a guideline, but they're not really enforceable. I'd like see them eliminated and replaced with the more textual description of the material that might offend a younger viewer. Parents can make their own choices.

One last though. When I was in the 7th grade, my English teacher left a copy of Portnoy's Complaint laying around. I found it, gave it a glance, and found some very graphic language. I read it to the class. Got myself, the teacher, and the school in trouble. Those were the days.

[Paulclem]

Good heavens, what would Coriolanus get rated?

Would the pre-14 year olds want to read Coriolanus? I'd have been pleased if my children had read this in their pre-teens.

While I can certainly imagine there are some things I wouldn't want my young children to read--if I had young children--I can't even imagine how one would begin to go about rating books. If, for example, the criteria for rating were connected to incidents of violence in a story, there are any number of books aimed at children which might merit rather high ratings: the original Grimms Fairy Tales, for example, or lots of incidents in Roald Dahl's books. As someone else said, bookstore and library categories tend to already take care of a lot of potential issues that rating would be aimed at. You know a book from the "Romance" section might not be appropriate for a seven year old for example.

I think we know the kind of stuff we're taling about. Perhaps you haven't read much pulp horror with the sadistic rape scenes etc that I read regularly in my early teens. It's not the Shakespearian or classic stuff we're on about, and it is a valid point about sensible information on pre-14 year olds reading. Do you want young boys partly forming their attitudes to women through this kind of book? I don't for a minute believe that it inevitably leads to rape, misogyny etc, just as I don't think video games or films lead to violence without much more powerful factors being involved, but it is certainly not helpful for the kid.

I think around 14 is when exploration is more acceptable.

[Petrarch's Love]

I think we know the kind of stuff we're taling about. Perhaps you haven't read much pulp horror with the sadistic rape scenes etc that I read regularly in my early teens. It's not the Shakespearian or classic stuff we're on about, and it is a valid point about sensible information on pre-14 year olds reading. Do you want young boys partly forming their attitudes to women through this kind of book? I don't for a minute believe that it inevitably leads to rape, misogyny etc, just as I don't think video games or films lead to violence without much more powerful factors being involved, but it is certainly not helpful for the kid.

I was working under the assumption that the kind of book you describe is the sort ratings would be aimed at, and brought up the classics because such a rating system would naturally have to extend to all books, and I wondered what the reaction would be to extending it to "classic" reading. I don't think you're going to get much argument against a rating system for the kind of books you describe. The interesting part of the ratings question is not pertaining to such obvious works, but the ones that may be less obvious, or more controversial in terms of how we would chose to rate them. Coriolanus just came off the top of my head as one of the Roman plays, but the real Shakespeare play to talk about would be Titus Andronicus, which has a central scene featuring the sadistic rape and mutilation of a woman and ends with cannibalism. I'm not sure I would want my pre-14 year old child reading Titus any more than I would want him or her reading modern pulp horror. You may be right, however, that a few guidelines about the content of a book might be helpful for parents, although my point was that the really obvious pulp horror stuff already seems fairly easy to spot. Not only can you tell something about a book by the section it's placed in at the store, but books do already come with a few hints as to content in the form of cover art and dust jacket synopses (not to mention, simply skimming the actual contents of the book).

Still, if one wanted to place a little rating mark on a book to indicate it might not be appropriate for young children, that doesn't sound like the end of the world in and of itself. I'm just not sure it would deal with the issue you're raising. I doubt very much that parents are the ones going out and unwittingly buying pulp horror for their pre-14 year old boys (or even their post-14 year olds) as it is. Just because there aren't ratings doesn't mean that everyone thinks it's perfectly fine reading for young people. So would the rating system then have to involve some kind of regulation by which children/adolescents under a certain age can't buy a book without parental consent, just as they can't enter an R rated movie? If that were the case, it might very well come out that a 14 year old couldn't buy the complete works of Shakespeare (forget Seneca!) or any number of other classic works, because there are several classics that could easily get a pretty mature rating. It might be that you still think it would be a good idea to rate books of all kinds, but such a system might have a very surprising effect on how we characterize all sorts of reading.

Thinking of the way this would have to expand to a variety of books brings up another, very practical reason that we probably don't rate books, which is the sheer number of them. While it's possible to give ratings to the number of video games or movies released in a year, the thought of applying a rating to all the books printed in a year, much less the massive number produced in the last several centuries is staggering to say the least.

[Paulclem]

You don't seem the kind of poster that posts off the top of your head, but point taken. I'm just aware of what's possible to buy, and I was thinking of a particular type of book. Perhaps you're right, and those sorts are easy to spot. On reflection, perhaps there are too many to comprehensively rate, and, as someone has said, there is a kind of rating with the distiction between, child teen and adult books.

I think Scher's point about encouraging young readers to read the right kind of book for their age is interesting.Of course you don't want to restrict the avid reader, but I know, as Scher has pointed out, that I read stuff much too early to get it.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I think Scher's point about encouraging young readers to read the right kind of book for their age is interesting.Of course you don't want to restrict the avid reader, but I know, as Scher has pointed out, that I read stuff much too early to get it.

I get what you’re saying, but I don't think that age is necessarily a good indicator of comprehension, reading experience is perhaps more of a factor in terms of comprehension. Besides, there is nothing wrong with reading a book that is a little too challenging that you don't "get" some of, it's all good for development. In the end I would rather leave the individual to determine what they want to read (within obvious reason) than to stamp a one size fits all label on books - not to mention the impossibility of that in practical terms.

[Paulclem]

I get what you’re saying, but I don't think that age is necessarily a good indicator of comprehension, reading experience is perhaps more of a factor in terms of comprehension. Besides, there is nothing wrong with reading a book that is a little too challenging that you don't "get" some of, it's all good for development. In the end I would rather leave the individual to determine what they want to read (within obvious reason) than to stamp a one size fits all label on books - not to mention the impossibility of that in practical terms.

I'd probably go with that. It's only with hindsight that I think the issue interesting. Any restrictions on me would have raised my hackles in the past anyway.
I suppose if I think of reading The wasteland that I was aware it was a great poem. I liked it, but as often as not I didn't know why. It was the returning to it from the initial reading that I gained anything like an understanding of it. It's like a big heap of culture that only becomes relevant when you experience/ read/ become aware of the bits. It took time to build it into anything with a coherent theme.

It's still a work in progree I hasten to add.

I seem to have come round to the opposite view, but then I still wouldn't have liked my kids to read the stuff I did. Torn parent syndrome.