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Following up my earlier post about how some fans deploy ratings.
The comments were an interesting study in themselves. My first observation was that a good half did not respond to the post itself, but rather were personal position statements on ratings qua ratings. From this I draw the conclusion that there is an issue-iceberg floating under this comment-water.
The largest subset within this segment appears to group around the fairly incontestable argument that the MPAA is an appalling body of prodnose prudes, whose rating system reflects their disgustingly skewed priorities. Far be it from me to argue with this premise; indeed, I might well state it more strongly.
The curious thing I observed was that none of this group really seemed to want to argue directly with my actual post hypothesis, which is that many in my own corner of fandom and possibly others have subverted the MPAA scale for our own wonderfully non-prudish ends. The impression I have from those comments is that those particular fans do not feel their own usage of the scale is a subversion, and therefore that fora and communities that require MPAA ratings to be used are forcing the official, un-subverted MPAA system, and concomitant attitudes, upon them. The general feeling of those responses seems to be that, far from a self-applied advertisement of sexy content, the required use of the MPAA scale calls on them to be complicit in the MPAA agenda of censorship, anti-sexuality, misogyny and homophobia
This was not stated in so many words, so this reading of the comments makes some assumptions; I may be wrong. But I can certainly appreciate why this would be deeply objectionable, if I’m reading the subtext correctly.
The previous post did not, of course, deal at all with the issue of required ratings. However, the issue of required ratings, and the use of the MPAA scale as one of those commonly required, is clearly at the forefront of some fans’ minds. Thus, I would like to offer a post that to address the issue directly. On this topic, I would say that requiring the use of a scale whose non-fandom deployment is so distasteful is not exactly the best way to promote emotional safety and intellectual ease among fandom at large. In an ideal world, I think self-applied ratings should not require the internalization of a puritan censor in the back of every writer’s head.
One of the most common alternatives the commenters suggested was the use of a simple “explicit” versus “non-explicit”, which would serve much the same purpose that any rating system currently does. It isn’t perfect; it still contains a good deal of elasticity in what each poster considers “explicit” to mean, but this is going to be an issue in any rating system that is self-applied. I certainly would not suggest turning to externally applied ratings simply to achieve greater consistency, even were such a thing remotely feasible which it is not. In combination with the usual run of other meta information (genre, warnings, etc.) explicit/non-explicit would seem to address the concerns of those communities that do require the use of ratings. It has the bonus of being something any English-speaking fan can readily understand, which is not the case for any nationally-specific rating system. Nationally-specific interpretations are, as usual, part and parcel of any system’s elasticity.
For myself, to throw my hat in the ring right off the bat, I am inclined against required meta information of any sort. Required ratings or disclaimers or such seem to serve no useful purpose. I doubt many of us deceive ourselves that there is any actual regulatory or legal utility in meta information. Courtesy to one’s readers may come into it, but its definition varies, sometimes wildly, from one forum to another. My personal inclination is to let authors write the meta information as they will, with an awareness of where they are publishing, and then let the readers read as they dare. Fandom has promoted a general tendency to proliferate rather than par labels, after all. Thus, those fans who want no contact with the very notion of the MPAA can avoid it while those fans who want to attract the eye with an NC-17, promising porny pleasures behind the cut tag, can keep on giving the MPAA the virtual finger every time they do so.
Okay. Now you have somewhere to debate ratings qua ratings.
