Rating system for books

[molten_dragon]

I'm not sure what got me thinking about this today.

Books are the only major form of media that doesn't attempt to give any sort of warnings or ratings about the contained content, or try to prevent certain people from consuming that content.

Movies and Video games both have rating systems, and require you to be a certain age to view/play certain content.

TV has a rating system, but it's more for information.

Music sort of has a rating system, but it's binary. Some albums have the parental advisory label, some don't.

Magazines with nudity (playboy, hustler, etc.) aren't sold to people under 18.

Many books contain graphic descriptions of sex, drug use, violence, profanity, or other topics that some people might find offensive, or want to prevent their children from reading about. In fact I've read FAR more graphic and disturbing scenes of violence in books than anything I've seen on a movie screen. And I've read much more graphic sex scenes than I've seen in anything but pornography. But no attempt is made to inform consumers about what they might be in for in a book before reading it. The closest we come is in bookstores that sort the books into categories, but even that's not really helpful in some cases. Books in the teen section might still have graphic sex, violence, and profanity. Sections like sci-fi/fantasy give no real clue as to whether anything in the book might be offensive to some people.

Newspapers are the only other kind of media that has no rating system, but they also don't really contain the kinds of material that get other media rated as not for children.

So why do you think there is no rating system for books, when so much effort goes into creating ratings for nearly every other type of media that exists? Do you think it's a good thing or a bad one? Would you support creating a rating system for books? Or banning younger people from reading books with certain content?





*Note, I don't want people to get the wrong impression. I'm not trying to push any kind of agenda here or advocate for a particular position. I just thought it would make for an interesting topic to discuss.

[Grinner]

I'd say it's because they predate the widespread regulation of media.

[hamishspence]

I've seen some young-adult books with ratings of a sort on the back - saying whether they have a lot of violence/horror, or only a little.

Some also say "Not suitable for younger readers" on the front cover.

[erikun]

Most books do have a sort of age category, in the sense that fiction is divided up into adult and non-adult (children's) categories. Not many people actually pay much attention to these - perhaps thankfully - but it does mean you won't be seeing any graphic sex in children's books.

Other than that? Good. I can understand not wanting a 10-year-old to not read graphic scenes of sex and violence, but attempting to ban all conversation or topics of sex and violence just isn't appropriate. Plus, let's face it, you can have far more traumatizing things in a book than just violent/sexual material.

As for why, it's no doubt because writing is a very old medium, and censorship against writing is a very big concern, at least in the U.S. It's frequently written off as not explicitly showing its audience the graphic material as well, requiring them to already be familiar with it for the writing to be inappropriate. If a person thinks that the uvula1 is somewhere on somebody's knee, then any kind of scene which involves it isn't going to be understood properly.

1 The uvula isn't inappropriate, but it's a fun word to say. Uvula uvula uvula.

[eggynack]

A lot of those things you listed, all of them actually, are far more passive than reading a book. It takes very little time for some youthful personage to see some mature image and internalize it completely, or do the same with hearing something bad in musical form. By contrast, reading takes time, and a hell of a lot of it. You also have a lot more control over where you stop reading, while seeing a given image represents the beginning and the end of the event. You're pretty rarely going to be caught off guard by a book in the same way that you're caught off guard by other forms of media.

[molten_dragon]

I'd say it's because they predate the widespread regulation of media.

So does music, by as much or more than books do. And it hasn't completely avoided regulation.

[Raimun]

When I was a kid, it didn't even occur to me that those "boring, thick adult books" could contain something shocking. That image didn't make those books look appealing, so I never wanted to read them when I was a kid.

I would imagine that most kids don't realize this either and don't feel like reading them.

Now, imagine if you introduce the rating system. Now they know which books contain sex, strong language, violence, etc.

Mind you, this only works with books since they're not an audiovisual media*. There are no trailers of books or still images of particularly shocking pages on the front and back covers.

Edit: Granted, books about "cool things" like space ships, medievel warriors, cyborgs and vampires are a different game.

*Ok, text is visual but you know what I mean.

[Brother Oni]

Newspapers are the only other kind of media that has no rating system, but they also don't really contain the kinds of material that get other media rated as not for children.

Newspapers most definitely get material that's unsuitable for children - war news, murders, shootings, accidents, rapes/sexual assaults, etc.

In the UK, the press have a self regulation system that puts limits on particularly graphic images and language, but that's coming under increasing scrutiny these days.

[xkaliburr]

The main reason for this is there is not a regulatory body for books, and thus no one to regulate it. Nudity in magazines is regulated by pornography laws, and the RIAA places the sticker on albums, the MPAA assigns movie ratings, ESRB for videogames, etc.

[molten_dragon]

The main reason for this is there is not a regulatory body for books, and thus no one to regulate it. Nudity in magazines is regulated by pornography laws, and the RIAA places the sticker on albums, the MPAA assigns movie ratings, ESRB for videogames, etc.

So why hasn't anyone created one? The MPAA, RIAA, and ESRB were all created after the media that they were created to regulate.

[molten_dragon]

Newspapers most definitely get material that's unsuitable for children - war news, murders, shootings, accidents, rapes/sexual assaults, etc.

True, but they aren't presented in the same graphic way that similar material in books is. Newspapers might contain stories about a mass shooting, but they don't contain the gory details.

[Knaight]

So why hasn't anyone created one? The MPAA, RIAA, and ESRB were all created after the media that they were created to regulate.

Books are respected enough, and established enough in society that censorship faces resistance. Moreover, they are also cheaper to produce than films or videogames, and thus far more of them are made - they also take much more time to read than films do to watch. The logistics of getting large amounts of books rated are also a nice big wall.

It's also worth noting that plenty of films are unrated, particularly those from smaller studios or independent groups. Independent video games are frequently unrated as well. The logistics of rating pretty much prevent anything other than a few major publishers from getting rated. Given that this sort of thing will hurt the spread of books outside of said major publishing houses, and that people generally don't want that, it also gets in the way.

As for my personal feelings for this idea: I'd consider a rating system for books a bad idea. When it comes to the visual aspect, people are going to imagine things based on what they already have seen and already have experienced. The idea of books 'exposing' things to children is on shaky ground.

Moreover, the whole concept of restricting children from books that deal with 'adult themes' is something I'd consider a bad one in the first place. Getting to your specific quote:


Many books contain graphic descriptions of sex, drug use, violence, profanity, or other topics that some people might find offensive, or want to prevent their children from reading about. In fact I've read FAR more graphic and disturbing scenes of violence in books than anything I've seen on a movie screen. And I've read much more graphic sex scenes than I've seen in anything but pornography.

There are plenty of children who's lives involve these things. There are plenty of children who deal with parents who are drug abusers, who are victims of violence or see violence done within their home life, including sexual violence, so on and so forth. Good books are something that children from that sort of background can use to help themselves, and that becomes much more difficult when books about aspects of their own lives are restricted from them.

Parents may want to restrict things, yes. That doesn't mean society as a whole has to go along with them, and I'd prioritize children who've had to deal with horrible things having resources over parents being better able to control their children.

[Fiery Diamond]

Also, it's worth pointing out that unless a book is brand new, in the age of the internet, even if you can't find someone you personally know (or someone in the bookstore) who has read a given book, you can always find one online. Then, you can ask about the presence/absence/extent of certain themes, moods, and imagery in the book. So from an informational perspective a rating system isn't really necessary.

Granted, some people don't make that effort. I know I didn't once, and ended up buying the first three books of a widely acclaimed series that I ended up disliking because of the presence of and handling of sexual themes and certain moods. Waste of money. I should have asked specific questions first. Stupid me.

For those curious, the series was The Dresden Files. Way too dark and edgy for me.

Which of course brings up another problem with just asking others: different people have different opinions on these issues. I'll bet there are some people who just read what I wrote and when they saw I was talking about the Harry Dresden books they were completely confused that anyone would consider those very dark or sexual. But that's a problem with a rating system as well - books aren't audio-visual (reading text is not the kind of visual that seeing pictures is), so there's a lot more subjectivity in trying to apply a standard.

In short: a rating system, beyond being almost impossible to get implemented, would be too subjective to work properly and not really necessary anyway.

[Brother Oni]

But that's a problem with a rating system as well - books aren't audio-visual (reading text is not the kind of visual that seeing pictures is), so there's a lot more subjectivity in trying to apply a standard.

While I agree that there'd be an increase in subjectivity, I'd argue that applying an objective standard is not near impossible.

I'm fairly sure there are limits on what content is permitted into children's or Young Adult books, so there must be a publishing standard somewhere.

[tomandtish]

Another important reason is that books don’t have one major overriding agency like the other three (movies, games, music) do. Games had the Entertainment Software Association, which created the ESRB. The RIAA was the music industry’s main trade organization, and movies have the Motion Picture Association of America (and the MPPC – Motion Picture production Code – was the replacement for the old Hayes Code that the MPAA follows). These agencies each handle the vast majority of material in their respective areas. If you look at them as shareholders in a company, they each hold that crucial 51% plus.

Each of these groups had enough power in its area that when pressure from outside was placed to start a rating system, the group was able to make it happen. There’s no single equivalent force in books. The American Library Association is one of the biggest, and they are adamantly opposed to a system like this. But there are way too many widespread groups for it to be an issue.

It’s also important to note that none of these are actually laws as such. They are self-regulating organizations that each of those groups (movies, games, music) has agreed to (how freely they agreed is open for interpretation). For example, there’s no federal law that says a 10yo can’t go into a rated R movie on their own. States or even cities may have passed their own laws, but the ratings are officially only a recommendation. Assuming no state or local law exists, a movie theater could technically let anyone capable of paying for the ticket into any movie they are showing. (Of course, litigation might be a consequence). In some cases the agency may try and actively enforce existing laws through litigation (RIAA and music piracy for example), but they are not law agencies in and of themselves.

As Knaight mentioned above, it’s perfectly fine for a studio to release an unrated movie. It’s up to the theater chains to decide if they want to carry it or not. Most decide not to because unrated films generally tend to make little money (there are exceptions) and cause a lot of backlash among the community. But there’s technically nothing stopping anyone from making one. You have the right to make it, and the theaters have the right not to show it. Same holds for games and music. Not counting any local laws, you can release games and music without a rating. Just don’t be surprised if people decide not to carry it because they feel (right or wrong) that it isn’t worth the hassle.

[Fiery Diamond]

While I agree that there'd be an increase in subjectivity, I'd argue that applying an objective standard is not near impossible.

I'm fairly sure there are limits on what content is permitted into children's or Young Adult books, so there must be a publishing standard somewhere.

On the other hand, there are Young Adult books that have what in a film would be R-rated material. So...

[Grinner]

So does music, by as much or more than books do. And it hasn't completely avoided regulation.

Fair point.

However, how long has music been distributed for mass consumption? According to Wikipedia, the phonograph was invented in 1877, and it, as I remember, was the first medium in which music was recorded and sold.

The printing press was invented well before then.

[Remmirath]

I think that a ratings system for books would be mostly pointless and certainly annoying, much as it is for all those things that do have ratings systems. The only thing that might possibly have some use is specific warnings about content, because slapping an age limit on something really doesn't tell you anything about what exactly they thought was the problem, and even that I'd rather not have.

I never came across anything that bothered me a good deal in a book where that wasn't because it touched on some phobia I have. I never paid any attention to labels on movies or games, either, and similarly had no problems from it.


True, but they aren't presented in the same graphic way that similar material in books is. Newspapers might contain stories about a mass shooting, but they don't contain the gory details.

Your newspapers sound more pleasant than the ones I've seen, then -- and the news on TV definitely contains very graphic images. Personally, anything potentially upsetting I read about in a book or watch in a movie or game is not really going to bother me, whereas on the news it's actually real and thus might. I suppose some people might be bothered by similar things in fictional stories, though.

[molten_dragon]

I think that a ratings system for books would be mostly pointless and certainly annoying, much as it is for all those things that do have ratings systems. The only thing that might possibly have some use is specific warnings about content, because slapping an age limit on something really doesn't tell you anything about what exactly they thought was the problem, and even that I'd rather not have.

I agree with you there. If there were a rating system for books I'd like to see it more like the TV rating system than movies or video games. I like that the TV ratings tell you why each show got the rating it did.


I never came across anything that bothered me a good deal in a book where that wasn't because it touched on some phobia I have. I never paid any attention to labels on movies or games, either, and similarly had no problems from it.

Yeah, I don't really get bothered by things I read or see or hear either, but some people probably do.

[Morph Bark]

So does music, by as much or more than books do. And it hasn't completely avoided regulation.

Electronic music is not as old, however, and much closer to the start of regulation in age.

Also, books require a certain level of reading ability. Movies, TV series, music and video games generally do not. Books written for adults generally require a level of reading that children below the age of 13 don't have, and some of ages 13-17 don't either. Besides, there's also the general view of "darn kids don't read these days no more".

[Aotrs Commander]

I think trying to regulate books more than the current standards would be both futile and pointless and probably - like almost all attempts to "protect" people from being offended or worried by something - not only not beneficial to the people being "protected" (who often don't really feel the need to be protected) and sometimes deterimental to society as a whole.

(E.g., the paranoia about child abuse, while laudible on one level, has gone so far that teachers can no longer discipline their students - and the students know this. I personally know of people who have been brought up on entirely fabiricated charges to get back at the teachers specifially because the children - or teenagers in this case - knew that the authorities are obliged to take such charges seriously. But that's another axe to grind and one that might be getting political, so I'll leave it at that.)

The regulatory stuff that exists for other medium is already poorly implemented - to be honest, if you wanted a regulatory system that worked, you don't regulate the output, you'd regulate the parents...



Not to mention that modern censorship is utterly backwards anyway - where ultra violence is considered less offensive than nudity, or sex between consenting adults. I even personally prefer it that way around buteven I think that's utterly ridiculous.



I think the other major reason is that, for (the majority of) children, the written word doesn't have the same immediacy as a visual medium, or even an audio one. Children's tales - proper ones, not the heavily-edited versions we get nowadays - are full of people getting their heads cut off or other nasty things. And children love that stuff. Something that writers like Roahl Dahl understood well. You can thus get away with much more in a written medium because of that distance, because of the room for the child's imagination.

(And no matter how good a child's imagination is, there are simply not going to be able to envision certain things without actually seeing them.)

And getting children to read anything these days is an achivement, so if they are reading, I think people are less inclinded to be worried about what. (Heck, reading "adult" book ("adult" in the sense "what adults read" rather than, y'know porn - though one could make a lot of points about stuff like Mills and Boon or something...!) is considered generally to be a sign of maturity or at least capability...)

[Eldan]

I agree with you there. If there were a rating system for books I'd like to see it more like the TV rating system than movies or video games. I like that the TV ratings tell you why each show got the rating it did.

It seems to be the other way around, here. Most movies I see in the shops just have an age limit on them (12+), while games have an age limit and content warnings (12+, coarse language, light nudity, cartoonish violence).

[Knaight]

And getting children to read anything these days is an achivement, so if they are reading, I think people are less inclinded to be worried about what. (Heck, reading "adult" book ("adult" in the sense "what adults read" rather than, y'know porn - though one could make a lot of points about stuff like Mills and Boon or something...!) is considered generally to be a sign of maturity or at least capability...)

Popular wisdom suggests this, but what I've seen of actual statistics contradicts it heavily. Using U.S. statistics (where the problem is considered particularly bad) approximately 8 out of 10 people read a book because they wanted to in a given year. However, this number is closer to 9 out of 10 for children and young adults, provided you cut off those below a certain age (I want to say 6 for this, but it might be a bit off). Which, with population demographics being what they are, leaves the adult voluntary readership population at approximately 6 out of 10.

The conclusion here is pretty clear - children read, children want to read, and most read beyond the books assigned fro school. The same really can't be said about adults, though the reasons for that could be simple business in some cases.

[Aotrs Commander]

Popular wisdom suggests this, but what I've seen of actual statistics contradicts it heavily. Using U.S. statistics (where the problem is considered particularly bad) approximately 8 out of 10 people read a book because they wanted to in a given year. However, this number is closer to 9 out of 10 for children and young adults, provided you cut off those below a certain age (I want to say 6 for this, but it might be a bit off). Which, with population demographics being what they are, leaves the adult voluntary readership population at approximately 6 out of 10.

The conclusion here is pretty clear - children read, children want to read, and most read beyond the books assigned fro school. The same really can't be said about adults, though the reasons for that could be simple business in some cases.

I was being a bit faceous with that comment, I confess.

[Asheram]

So the ones who'd push for regulation and censorship aren't the types who'd read books in the first place?

[Sith_Happens]

So the ones who'd push for regulation and censorship aren't the types who'd read books in the first place?

The way arguments about content regulation usually tend to go (see: "violent video games"), I'd be more surprised if they were.

[Knaight]

So the ones who'd push for regulation and censorship aren't the types who'd read books in the first place?

While I haven't actually seen anything that correlates the data, it's not like the numbers don't work with this hypothesis - and beyond the numbers, it looks highly plausible. I'd go so far as to say probable, with the understanding that it is most of those who push for regulation, and that even they likely read a book occasionally.

[Asheram]

As a layman and quite ineloquent I just had a thought, let me explain.

Note that this is based purely on conjecture but I think that the reason there isn't any real lobbying for condemning books (there are the occasional banned book) is because the exposure to books is extremely limited.
Forgive me for this poor choice of words but let's have a look at the different forms of regulated media.

Movies, back in the days "everyone" went to the movies and if there was something in there that people disagreed with then the word would spread, added with the extra exposure by posters and commercials.

Tv, most people own a tv and it's easy to even accidentally be exposed to something by just flipping through the channels and different commercials.

Video Games, exposure here comes from the adults buying the games for their kids since they'll surely be catching the occasional glance at the tv, hearing the audio or simply having a look at the cover art for the casing.

Books have no such accidental exposure. There might be some offensive cover art but other than that you have to actually open the book and read it through to find something to object to and that takes effort. There are few commercials about books and aside from it getting major media attention (Harry Potter controversies, Fifty Shades of Gray) a majority of books fly far below the radar.
I suppose there'll always be the concerned parent reading the books before the kid but such things are rare (or at least I hope they are)

Edit: Forgive the horrendous grammar, the awful spelling and my poor choice of words. I hope you understand the geist of what I'm attempting to say.

[LadyEowyn]

I think it's partly that reading about something graphic tends to be a lot less creepy and disturbing than actually seeing it (and far less so than participating in it, as in many video games).

Also, ratings are mainly for keeping highly graphic material away from kids, and your average child (or even early teen) isn't a proficient enough reader to be extremely likely to run across a lot of adult stuff. Obviously it varies - there are certainly plenty of teens who read at an adult level.

Also, books have a longer history as a medium of communication and information rather than simple entertainment. There are unpleasant implications around censoring books (including fiction), whereas people don't seem to feel as strongly about censoring fictional films and TV. In film, documentaries are generally not rated, though they might have a warning or disclaimer if they include disturbing scenes.

I don't think we need a ratings system for books. I'm not convinced we need one for films, either - or at least, we need something very different from the current system. When The King's Speech is rated R on the basis of one scene (which is just a lot of meaning-free swearing as a form of speech therapy), while movies with major amounts of killing can still get PG and PG-13 ratings, the ratings system isn't useful any more. It's got far too much control over the types of movies that are made (everyone wants PG and PG-13 films, so they include the things that the MPAA 'allows' and exclude things it doesn't allow, regardless of how well they work with the plot and regardless of the filmmakers' own judgements about what's appropriate for what ages). If the film ratings system actually made some kind of sense, I'd have a more favourable view towards it.

(I agree with a ratings system for games, because it's quite legitimate for parents to not want their kids or teens to be playing games where they murder hookers for fun and/or profit.)

[Brother Oni]

I don't think we need a ratings system for books. I'm not convinced we need one for films, either - or at least, we need something very different from the current system. When The King's Speech is rated R on the basis of one scene (which is just a lot of meaning-free swearing as a form of speech therapy), while movies with major amounts of killing can still get PG and PG-13 ratings, the ratings system isn't useful any more.

The rating system is also specific to a country and by extension, to that country's culture (which leads back to the earlier point of the lack of objective standards).

For example, The King's Speech was classified 12A (nobody under the age of 12 can see it without an adult with them), over here, which just highlights the differences between the US and the UK in my opinion.

[LadyEowyn]

True, other countries' rating systems can be more reasonable than the MPAA. But most major films are made in Hollywood, and the US is the largest market, so it's the MPAA that has the most influence over what types of films are made.

[hamishspence]

I've seen comments that the Star Wars original trilogy all being U-certificate, is really something of an under-rating, considering the occasional gore, mutilation, and so forth, that we see.

There's also Watership Down- another U-cert.

Are they higher-rated elsewhere?

[molten_dragon]

I think it's partly that reading about something graphic tends to be a lot less creepy and disturbing than actually seeing it (and far less so than participating in it, as in many video games).

I'm not so sure about that. I think it's pretty subjective. Things I read tend to stick with me far more than things I watch or hear.

I remember reading The Frontiersmen on the advice of my 7th grade history teacher, and I still vividly remember the brutal violence in that book. I've seen some pretty twisted stuff in movies, TV, and online videos too, but none of that has stuck with me nearly as much.

[Sith_Happens]

I've seen comments that the Star Wars original trilogy all being U-certificate, is really something of an under-rating, considering the occasional gore, mutilation, and so forth, that we see.

There's also Watership Down- another U-cert.

Are they higher-rated elsewhere?

I don't know about Watership Down, but five out of six Star Wars films are rated PG here in the States (Revenge of the Sith landed a PG-13, probably on account of the immolation).