I've been mulling this one over in my head for a while, and the main reason I'm wondering about this has to do with the "Young Adult" and the more recent "New Adult" classifications for books. It feels like there's such a broad spectrum of what can/should be considered "YA" because in some respects it has to do with the reading difficulty level and in some respects it has to do with the subject matter regardless of reading level.
To be clear I'm not saying a rating system specifically identical to the movie rating system. Rather, just something that can be referenced which easily breaks down the intensity of the subject matter found between the pages.
As far as I'm aware, the only age classification currently out there between "YA" and "kids book" is "mid-grade" which a quick search tells me is geared towards 8-12 year old readers. There isn't really a prevalent "T for Teen" in books like there is in video games. If your local store or library separates a "Teen" section, it likely falls outside of the norm.
There are books labeled YA that have sex, language, and violence which would easily earn an R rating if directly translated to screen. There are also books labeled YA that would have a G rating. To be clear, I'm not saying this is inherently problematic, this isn't a "think of the children!" type of post. I'm purely thinking from an objectively comparative sense without making a personal statement about what material is appropriate to consume at which ages. My point is that if you cast a line at the sea of "YA" books, you may end up reeling in a book that is written for an advanced 12 year old audience or a book written for anybody 18+ who simply doesn't want a book that's particularly difficult.
The primary argument I can imagine for a movie-like rating system being detrimental to published books is that it would probably create a pretty obvious path to banning books in a broad-sweeping blanket style, which I feel like we can probably all agree would be thoroughly abused by bad actors in positions of power at just about every level.
But I also feel like a universal rating system could theoretically be used for good as well. For instance, there are loud voices out there who would consider any queer themes or actions whatsoever to automatically be "mature" in nature. But if there were a universally adopted standard which clarified that queer themes in and of themselves are not mature (main character enjoys a tame same sex kiss), but that mature themes can sometimes be queer (intentional smut that happens to be queer), that might be helpful in the fight against blanket bans as well. Basically the (proposed) assumption would be encompassed by the tenet, "If the depicted actions or themes are age-appropriate if all characters were cis-het, then the depicted actions or themes are also age-appropriate if any/all characters are queer." Or simply put, if a cis-het couple making out would be rated PG, a queer couple making out has to also be rated PG, and so on.
Of course, the above point would assume that the hypothetical universal rating system would be successfully passed with that inclusive tenet.
I'd really love to know what people think about this. Is a ratings system just a terrible idea that can only lead to more harm than good? Or can it possibly be beneficial if handled properly?
by PsyferRL
14 Comments
The MPAA system isn’t even good for movies.
Honestly I think it’d be a disaster – like you said, it would just give book banners a much easier target. They’d go after anything rated above G and suddenly half the library is gone
The thing with books vs movies is that reading is so much more personal and internal. A sex scene in a book hits different than watching actors simulate it on screen, and kids process written content way differently than visual media
Plus who gets to decide what counts as “mature themes”? We already see how that goes with the current book challenges
Just sounds like another way to restrict certain readers from the books they want.
The movie rating system is problematic for movies. they’re determined by a small board of people who put their political and religious views into their votes. It’s meant that movies have had to be changed so that they go from an R-rating (less of an audience) to a PG-13 rating (with more of an audience) based on arbitrary standards.
I think getting rid of ratings altogether would be the best option. Listing some content tags along with books or movies would be much better both for the art forms themselves and for consumers, because ratings don’t actually mean anything.
“theoretically be used for good”
The right is not interested in your theories, and they have the power. Don’t give them more bullets.
No, no and no again.
I think that as long as a reader can handle the reading level, as in the vocabulary/rhetorical devices/structure are comprehensible, they should be able to read about whatever they want. I don’t think a teenager reading about sex or violence is inherently bad, reading is how we learn about the world and sex swearing drugs death etc are all part of both the world and children’s lives. I do not want any person or organization to set themselves up as a moral authority deciding how and when it’s appropriate for someone else’s children to learn about aspects of life. If parents want to control what their children are exposed to, they can research the book to see if it matches their personal stances.
I mean, isn’t this kind of what the middle grade/YA/adult split achieves to begin with?
It would be useless for books. And also used as weapons. But I do like ao3 style tags when authors provide them, and they’re also easy to disregard/skip if you worry about spoilers.
The entire idea of splitting books by age beyond middle grade *at most* is silly. YA wasn’t really a thing when I was a kid, and the question of “transitioning” to adult books never came up, and now you get 20-year-olds hesitant to try “adult fantasy” or whatever. This is detrimental to everyone’s development.
Also, my country was marking all queer books 18+ and requiring them to be sold sealed for a while. It made the transition to full censorship smoother.
Gross. Abolish the MPAA.
A terrible idea.
I liked being a tween/teen and reading books that had “adult themes”, without adults knowing what kind of content I was reading. To the unaware adults (who hadn’t read the particular book), I was just a quiet kid reading a book.
I do not want this.
People have different metrics for what they consider offensive or mature or whatever. The movie rating system is completely arbitrary. One fuck is okay but two fucks is not? You can say shit after 9 pm but not before? Why would you want to introduce this nonsense to books?
I think crowdsourcing this information is the way to go. The imdb parents guide is a good way to get a sense of what a movie contains before watching it. If there’s not already a similar website for books, there could be. Some books even list topics contained inside as warnings for sensitive readers.
Books for kids are already sorted by reading level/age range. Age appropriateness is already baked into that. We do not need arbitrary ratings for books. Parents can skim through their kids’ books to weed out anything inappropriate. No good would come of an official ratings system like this for books.
In case I haven’t made my point, making a list of all the books that contain a queer character is *not*a good idea in this age of book banning and anti-LGBT bullshit. We’d be doing their homework for them.