The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) was founded in 1922 to ensure that American films had a “clean moral tone.” In 1968, they eventually established the Classification and Rating Administration, which began issuing ratings for films to help determine what films are appropriate for their children. And those ratings are quite universally known by now for anybody that goes to the movies (G, PG, PG-13. R, and NC-17).
However, don’t tell that to Donald Trump. The 45th President of the United States of America has recently been offering solutions on how to stop recurring gun violence and mass shootings in the country. The school shooting in Parkland, Florida which took the lives of more than 17 students and teachers, has had the President going through an assortment of possible ways to prevent such a tragedy from happening again, including a proposal to arm school teachers., something he floated during a meeting with lawmakers on Thursday.
At that same meeting, Trump targeted video games, saying they were having a harmful effect on young minds. “We have to do something about what [kids are] seeing and how they’re seeing it,” Trump stated. “And also video games. I’m hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is shaping more and more people’s thoughts.”
Trump continued, arguing that violent movies might be to blame as well, but the real kicker was his problem-solving idea that a ratings system for movies should implemented.
“You see these movies, they’re so violent. And yet a kid is able to see the movie if sex isn’t involved, but killing is involved. And maybe they have to put a rating system for that. You get into a whole very complicated, very big deal but the fact is that you are having movies come out that are so violent with the killing and everything else that maybe that’s another thing we’re going to have to discuss.” he said.
We don’t really know if Trump has any idea the MPAA actually exists or if his plan is to make the rules stricter, but something tells us it might be the former. And we wouldn’t be surprised if Trump thinks he’s the first person to come up with the “genius” idea of movie ratings.
At meeting on school safety, President Trump says violence in video games and movies is responsible for shaping young people’s thoughts: “We have to do something about maybe what they’re seeing” https://t.co/VfXvVkwQmq pic.twitter.com/vbt2t0dhtm
— CNN (@CNN) February 22, 2018