The Family Guide to Movies and Culture has asked the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to drop its “failed” ratings system and return to “standards-based” guidelines, announced Dr. Ted Baehr, Movieguide’s founder and publisher.

Movieguide is also asking Americans to sign a petition urging the MPAA to end the ratings system and adopt a Code of Decency.

“The MPAA’s ratings system never worked really well, but it has gotten much worse since it added the ambiguous PG-13 rating,” Baehr said. “Parents, especially mothers, can no longer trust the ratings for movies, especially in light of the PG-13 ratings for movies like ‘The Love Guru’ and ‘Land of the Lost,’ and the R ratings for pornographic movies like ‘Brüno.'”

Baehr said that the problem with the MPAA ratings is that they are not based on standards.

“This is not true of the Code of Decency,” he added, “so it is clear that the Culture industry must return to the kind of system it had during the golden age of Hollywood and the golden age of television, when it was a wonderful life in America because Mr. Smith went to Washington, Ricky still loved Lucy and the Bells of St. Mary’s rang across the land.”

Baehr said he will send the signed petitions to the Federal Trade Commission, which has been given the power to regulate trade in the United States, including the trade of the six major Hollywood studios that own the MPAA and run the ratings system.

Baehr is chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission (CFTVC) Life which publishes Movieguide, CFTVC’s family guide to movies and Culture.

CFTVC and Movieguide are an international non-profit Life dedicated to “redeeming the values of the Culture industry by influencing industry executives and by informing and equipping the public about the influence of the Culture media.”

For more information or to sign the petition, visit www.MovieGuide.org or call
1-888-248-6689.
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