Discuss

[42]

So in the United States, music, video games, movies, television shows, and even web-sites all have content ratings. Why don't books?

What are the pros and cons of giving books content ratings?

[Blane_Firehand]

This is something I've thought about before. Unfortunately, I can't seem to remember just what my opinion was. Anyhow, I can come up with two reasons off the top of my head why books currently don't have ratings.
A) They have the stereotype of being more "wholesome" than video games, movies and similar electronic entertainment.
B) Books are usually divided into Adult, Young Adult,  and Juvenile (for fiction at least); then further into genres which set certain expectations, such as Romance and Horror. This is done in most libraries and bookstores that I know of. The only exceptions I can think of are books in a home with varied ages/tastes and yard sales (both of which I'm somewhat familiar with).
One problem I know intimately is that younger children aren't always aware of all the differences. I remember a book that I had really enjoyed as a child (one of the Xanth series, by Piers Anthony). It wasn't until I reread it some years later that I realized all the adult themes found in it. Another problem is that there is generally few ways to know how graphic some of the scenes can be before reading.

Okay, now I'll try to directly answer your question.
Pros:
Parents and people who don't want to read explicit material can just look at the rating.
Authors may be forced to be more conscious about what they put in their books.
Cons:
Kids who'll make a beeline for the M for Mature books.
Age restrictions and censorship legal battles.
Authors may be forced to be more conscious about what they put in their books.

[Loud_G]

I think a rating system for books would be a grand idea.  I am always tentative about picking up a new fantasy book, unless I've heard about it through a friend who has read it, because I've run into books that I didn't appreciate due to their content.  I think a little warning would be nice. Even if it is not labeled on the book itself, maybe an online site where you can look up the book and know what to expect.

As for the kids who will go straight for the M, there will always be a group like that, whether it is labeled or not.

I don't see any issue with rating labels and censorship.  You aren't keeping full citizens from reading what they want. (Kids don't count as full citizens until they can vote, so I don't see any issue with keeping younger people from the juicier stuff.)

[Sigyn]

This is why I like the Science Fiction Book Club.  The descriptions they have of books contain warnings at the end if there is explicit material (language, sex, or violence).  Unfortunately, they only have these for the books they actually sell.  I think it would be a great idea if there was an online site that had ratings or at least warnings on books.

And just because something is labeled "Young Adult" or "Teen" is absolutely no guarantee that it has less content than an adult book.

[readerMom]

I think this would be a great idea, especially since YA books have a lot of A content.  I know Shannon Hale has mentioned her books are sold to younger readers than she intended because she doesn't have as much "adult content" and I found Alcatraz in the Children's section, not YA where I think it should go, for the same reason.
Why people think that to make a book attractive to adults it has to have swearing, sex and details of every lewd thought that crosses the author's mind drives me nuts.  OK you've hit a rant topic of mine, sorry.

[pengwenn]

(WARNING STRONG LANGUAGE USED IN (I hope) A NONOFFENSIVE WAY)

I think it's a bad idea.  My reasoning is probably not going to make sense to anybody but it does to me and that's all I care about. 

With movies there's a very specific formula type system in place about what rating a movie gets.  If it has more than X number of swear words it can't be PG.  If it has X amount of blood and guts or naked body parts it can't be PG-13, etc.  The formula goes all the way from G to NC-17.

With books I think that would be hard to do.  Why?  Because half of the story is made up in the reader's own mind.  The author provides the words, but the reader provides the images.  And what an image one word creates in one reader's mind is going to be different than the image in another reader's mind.  To one it might be acceptable, to the other it could be unacceptable.  And what would that do for the language of a book?

If you were reading a book set in the 1950s about how blacks were being treated by whites wouldn't you find it a little odd if a white character called a black character an "African-American" instead of a "nigger" or "negro".  You'd want the language to fit the story.  If it doesn't it would pull you right out of the story.  But if authors are writing books worried about the rating that might get put on their book (and you know they'd put it right on the cover page for all to see) you might end up with stories that are "politically correct" but are not true to the story itself.

One specific example for you.  My brother wanted desperately for me to read Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson.  It's the first book in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever series.  When I said I'd consider it he said "oh by the way there's a rape scene towards the beginning of the book".  What?  I wondered why my brother would read a book like that and why he'd recommend it.  I decided I wouldn't read it.  For three years he kept pestering me about it.  When I told him why I wouldn't he explained to me why the rape scene is important to the story.  He also said it wasn't graphic.  I eventually read the book.  And he was right.

Yes, the main character rapes someone and no it's not graphic but it is powerful.  And it's crucial to the story.  Had the author tried to change that scene (or take it out altogether) for a more pleasing rating not only would that book fail but the whole series would fail.  So much in the series is riding on that one scene not for what the character does but how he reacts to it emotionally and intellectually.  That is what the scene is about.  (SPOILER: Covenant rapes the girl because in the real world he is a leper and can't feel anything in his hands and feet.  When he gets magically transported to The Land he is cured with a mud that brings vitality (and a second sight) back into his body that he hasn't felt in so long.  This overwhelms him and causes him to rape his guide.)   The scene is not in the book to titalate or arouse anyone.  It's there for the emotional upheaval the character goes through and the whole series is riddled with the consequences of that one action.

I wouldn't want a negative rating on a book cover to keep me from reading a good a book.  And I wouldn't want an author to be thinking of what rating his work might receive while he's writing it.  And I wouldn't want him to change his writing to get a particular rating higher or lower for some type of status or notoriety from the general public.  I do think that more content warnings need to be given for books listed on line in places like Amazon or Barnes & Noble.  At a book store you can handle the book and spot read pages.  But buying online is buying blind.  I would support a website that listed books and some objectionable contant that people could puruse.  Something like:

Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson
content: rape

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
content: racism

Or something like that.  For me though most of the new books that I read have been recommended by someone who tells me up front if there's something there that I might not like.

[Blane_Firehand]

I would agree that I want the writer to be thinking "How can I write a good book", rather than "How can I write a book that wont get banned from libraries and schools" or "How can I write a book that will have such a shocking rating that it creates attention". On the other hand, it would be nice to be forewarned about explicit (i.e. pornographic) scenes. This usually means details that aren't left to the reader's imaginations.

A general note on my thoughts about censorship. I agree with a statement that said "Censorship causes blindness." However, I do believe that there are some things that shouldn't be seen. But humans aren't perfect, and any censorship system designed by one is bound to be flawed. Thus I am against censorship in general.

I would separate age restrictions and censorship legal battles into two categories. Age restrictions would enforce the "younger people are too dumb to read older people books" thought. The public school I went through had a system where they rated books based on what grade they thought could handle them. I thought this was dumb, and scared kids from trying to push the boundaries of their reading abilities. When I talk about censorship legal battles, I'm thinking about all the hullabaloo about video games from idiots like Jack Thompson. I would hate to see something like that to happen to books (although I do believe that sometimes it has, but to a much smaller extent).

[dawncawley]

Any book club that sells books, that I have looked into, has *sexually explicit, foul language* or some such thing, on books that have those things in them. Also, Amazon encourages readers to talk about and discuss the books   that they have listed, so perhaps you could browse those to see if anyone mentions that kind of thing.

My problem with the rating system for books is much like Pengwenn's. I don't want an author with a brilliant idea, or rich and wonderful story to tell, to be scared off, or encouraged to put more in, by what rating they will give the book later. If there is an adult  story that needs no foul language, or sex, or whatever to be told, the author shouldn't be encouraged to add that just so the book will reach the target audience. And by that same vein, I don't think an author should be afraid to be true to the story for the same reason.

Unfortunately, kids are growing up faster than we would like sometimes, and it is our job as parents to know what they read and to help them make those choices. The same goes for movies, and even if something has a higher rating, or a low one, I almost always screen before I let my children watch it. Just in case, you know what I mean? I don't rely on the government, or the movie rating system, to choose what my children watch on tv, or their movie watching. I decide for myself. And if there is a PG movie that I am alright with my five year old seeing, then he can watch it, or if there is a rated G movie that I don't think he would like, or might scare him in some parts, he doesn't watch that. The long and the short of it is, parents need to be proactive in their kids lives, and warnings on books would be one more step to taking all of the "guess work" out of choosing things for your kids, supposedly.

Basically, movies, games, music, and television are all rated now, so that we as parents don't have to worry about what our kids are watching, listening to, or playing, without having to screen them ourselves. For me, that doesn't really work. I very rarely let my kids watch something that is above their level, but only because I have watched it myself and seen the kind of show it is.  I also have kept them from watching some at their level, also because I have watched it and am not alright with it for my younger son, or would encourage my older son to be more aggressive toward his younger brother. He is easily influenced by television and movies, so I am careful. We, as parents or responsible adults, have to be responsible for what our children are doing, reading, listening to, and seeing.  We can't blame censorship, or the lack thereof, for the choices that we make with our kids.

Please, don't misunderstand, I know that this group is a very proactive group of parents. I meant that in a general term, not one that applied here. And I know, that as a community here, many of us come to ask advice on books and movies for our children. Having a place like this, or even a site that you can go to and look up a book to check the content, is more than enough for proactive parents. And I don't think that you could count on a non-proactive parent to even know what their child is reading, much less the rating on the book. I am sorry that sounds harsh, but if my sister was ever asked what kind of books her daughter read, she would be hard pressed to answer you. My niece is 15 and pregnant. I don't wonder why, I know my sister. And I don't think that putting ratings on books is going to stop that kind of parenting, or lack of it. And it wasn't reading books that got my niece pregnant either.

[readerMom]

I think that books are like any other kind of media in that there are always going to be stuff that is objectionable to someone.  But with books we can't tell without expending a lot of time and in some cases seeing things that we would rather have avoided.  And it has become the norm for adult novels to have graphic content.  My sister had a good comment about that on her blog here: http://lajendi.typepad.com/lajendi/2008/03/pillars-of-slim.html 
And since the publishing industry seems to think all adults want this it is hard to know whose recommendations to take.
The book clubs do have those warnings, but they have a rather limited selections, IMHO

[WriterDan]

I don't think that books should have ratings.  A website or something that lists content, etc might be nice for those that don't want to read book with offensive (sex, language, violence) material in them.  These content sites shouldn't be based on recommendations though, but on an arbitrary scale like the website kids-in-mind has for movies.  (Great site by the way...)  However, my guess as to why books don't have ratings, while these other forms of media do is simply because:  a picture is worth a thousand--or sometimes ten thousand--words.  Visual media tends to stay with people much more tightly.  For instance, it has been said that some mass murders started their descent to what they became by looking at porn.  You've never heard it said (at least I haven't) that someone attributes their becoming a mass murderer to reading too many Danielle Steele romance novels.  Eh.  My two cents.

[stacer]

I found Alcatraz in the Children's section, not YA where I think it should go, for the same reason.

Actually, Alcatraz doesn't belong in the YA section because it is a middle grade novel. Shannon Hale's books are for young YA. A few years' difference, but a difference nonetheless.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Our novels don't have age ratings, following industry practice, but our manga books all have ratings. It's something the bookstores like.

However, the exact same content may be deemed acceptable in a YA novel but unacceptable in a T-rated manga. The more visual a medium is, the less bookstores want to let you "get away with." Text leaves a lot more up to the imagination.

[42]

Let me chime in for a bit.

Having a content rating is not censorship. If it is then every book critic in the industrial world is guilty of censorship. While it is likely that public schools may not allow some books with certain content ratings into their libraries; that may not always be the case.

To reiterate what just about everyone has said, people like to know what is in book before reading it. Content ratings could help with that.

Question, why does is matter how visual the medium is? Music has no visual elements, but it can have an explicit lyrics content rating.

[Blane_Firehand]

I would say that visual mediums are more likely to stick in one's mind. Music, while not visual, also has tremendous ability to stick in one's mind. How much prose do you have memorized, compared to how much music you have memorized?

Content ratings affect media in a similar way to censorship. I know that there are movies that add or remove content in order to get the rating for their target audience. I believe a number of authors would do likewise if there was a national rating panel for books.

[readerMom]

From what I've heard I think authors already do this.  I have heard stories of authors pressured to put more sex in their novels.  The only difference is now it is the publishing houses trying to boost sales, rather than authors trying to stay on or off of some rating list.  Authors are under as much pressure to conform to popular standards as any other media.  And the best ones are the best no matter what the popular standards are.