New System To Rate Broadway Shows

[CapnHook]

Posted: 1/11/05 at 12:35pm

Television and film each have their own unique Rating systems:

Film: G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17
TV: Y, Y7, Y7-FV, G, PG, 14, MA

I think Broadway should start to use a standard rating system. It would help theatre-goers understand what type of show it is, and if it would be appropriate.

The idea, although I am sure not original, came to me because a woman who came to see a show at our school was a middle-school theater teacher. They were doing a study of puppets, and she said she was going to try to do a field trip to see AVENUE Q. My, what she learned in 2 minutes time!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/11/05 at 12:48pm

Oh, this reminds me of the day I was doing a report at the library my sophmore year in high school. In walks Kathy Garrity and her mother and they start getting periodicals from the librarian looking for reviews of the musical we were going to see a few weeks later, "Pippin." Mrs. Garrity was incensed because friends of hers had seen it and walked out because of the "shocking" subject matter and, I suppose, the inherent sexiness of Fosse dances. "You kids shouldn't see that crap, why can't you see 'Shenan-dough'?" That's really how she pronounced it. And we had seen it already on an earlier class trip. So, of course, because of somebody else deciding what wasn't appropriate for us to see, we ended up with a choice between Godspell and Shenan-dough.

Except for Mrs. Garrity's intervention, it was really fun to come of age in an era when it was sort of expected that we could see adult subject matter and not have our delicate little minds shattered by art.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 1/11/05 at 12:51pm

I'm shocked Namo. Didn't she know that the "Turn Back O Man" girl in Godspell can be pretty lewd? And they use the words "tit" and "damn" in Shenan-dough.

[CapnHook]

Posted: 1/11/05 at 12:53pm

Rating System should be general:

M - Mature Audiences
G - General Audiences
A - All Audiences

And include:

N - Nudity
O - Obscene Language
S - Sexual Content
etc.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/11/05 at 12:54pm

Shynnendough? Wasn't that the flop sequel originally titled Bring Back Brigadoon?

Updated On: 1/11/05 at 12:54 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/11/05 at 1:00pm

"Obscene Language" capn? Come on. "Obscenity" is in the mind of the beholder.

[timote316]

Posted: 1/11/05 at 1:04pm

If someone is too dumb to do a little research (or, in the case of Avenue Q, read the disclaimers they have readily available), its their own fault. Let them be shocked.

[CapnHook]

Posted: 1/11/05 at 1:05pm

timote:

Then why have a rating system for movies and television? I guess people are too dumb to research those as well.

[timote316]

Posted: 1/11/05 at 1:09pm

Point well taken, Capn.

Oh, and I re-read my post, I didnt mean to sound like I was bashing ur idea, just people who think 'Hey, Q has puppets? Let's go bring 4 year olds to the show, because puppets can't swear or have sex on stage, so I won't do any research'

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/11/05 at 1:19pm

See? Here we go! "I wasn't bashing your idea!" Can't we live in a world where we can strongly disagree with somebody's idea without threatening them or frickin going on and on and on about how we don't mean to hurt them?

The movie and television rating idea is a failure too, capn, and one of the reasons is that the people who are big on restricting other people's access are never satisfied. There was a time when there were NO movie ratings. Then they added two. Then they added X. Then Siskel and Ebert campaigned for NC-17 because they felt that there were arty movies that didn't deserve the scarlet X. So NC17 was created but because reactionary theater chain owners didn't want to upset the people who like ratings they decided not to show NC17 movies. So it ended up essentially being the same thing as the scarlet X anyway.

Also, who is the "ratings board" that passes judgment on the content? It's totally subjective. The way they try to address this is by creating subcategories with all the codes that you mention, "violence," "language." But who is the arbiter who decides what gets applied. How many f-words are acceptable?

This creates an atmosphere of self-censorship. Which is the antithesis of what theater should be.

[timote316]

Posted: 1/11/05 at 1:22pm

I actually wasn't bashing the idea. If some fool goes to Avenue Q and is shocked, they are likely to tell their friends of the "horrors" they saw, therefore hurting the word-of-mouth promotion. Granted, Avenue Q is a bad example when it comes to word-of-mouth promotion (as it won the Tony and the massive amounts of advertising), but you know what I mean

[BWayBoy88]

Posted: 1/11/05 at 4:34pm

I dont think this would be a good idea. It might influence writers in a negative way. For example they might cut out a brilliant song or scene because it would mean the difference between a M or a G rating.

[me101]

Posted: 1/11/05 at 4:41pm

>>For example they might cut out a brilliant song or scene because it would mean the difference between a M or a G rating.

so true. It makes me sick when I hear that scenes or dialogue was cut out from a movie because the creators were trying to go for a PG or G rating.

[robbiej]

Posted: 1/11/05 at 4:44pm

And kids can just walk up and see a movie whenever they want with friends.

It's a little bit more involved for a bunch of teenagers to walk up and plop down $100 a ticket to see a show.