This blog is rated NC-17

I noticed on Bro. Don Tansey's blog Movable Jewel this morning, down at the bottom, a new widget gizmo saying "This blog is rated G." You can click on it and get the rating for your own blog.

The Burning Taper is rated "NC-17: No one 17 and under admitted."

I was surprised. I don't use much profanity on this site, and the rating system most likely only reads the blog content, not the comments, where a "dirty word" occasionally gets posted.

So why the adult rating?

"This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

• death (12x)
• sex (6x)
• dead (5x)
• dick (3x)
• kill (1x)"

Interesting. So we need to protect our kids from discussions of dying?

Er. I guess I just increased the word count by one for all those words by posting their list here.

All of the uses of the word "dick" on this blog are related to the late science-fiction author Philip K. Dick, by the way. So is that link in the blog roll to a blog called Total Dick-head.

Oops. I just increased the word-count for "dick" three more times. Uh, damn, now four times!

And added a damn.

Twice.

I better stop before the Taper gets rated triple-X.

Speaking of ratings, have you seen the film This Film is Not Yet Rated? It's been playing on IFC lately. It's a documentary about the film ratings industry, and it will open your eyes about the politics behind the ratings system. The raters' identities are a closely guarded secret, with the MPAA ratings board saying they're all mainstream family types, with young or teen-aged kids, people who would naturally be concerned with morals and protecting children, and that the roster changes frequently.

With the help of a private investigator, the filmmakers "out" the identities of some of the MPAA raters, discovering that many, if not most, of them have been around a very long time, making a career out of what is billed as a temp job, and that their children are long since grown.

An interesting twist to the film is that it shows what happened when the movie itself was submitted to be rated.

I'll not give away any more of the film. If you like learning new things, and don't mind having pre-conceived notions (like the belief that the ratings system is a "good" thing) held up to scrutiny, I recommend you to see the movie.

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