Jack Valenti is dead.

How will you cover it old media?

Mostly, filmmakers complain that they must work against muddled or moving boundaries. And parents’ groups grouse about “ratings creep,” a perceived tendency for a category like PG-13 to permit ever more violence, sex and profanity over the years to reach impressionable youth. Yet it was Mr. Valenti’s genius to have devised an apparatus that is not bound by precedent, changes its definitions at will and, ultimately, serves the motion picture industry by becoming, at any given moment, as permissive or restrictive as the prevailing climate seems to demand.

[The Ratings System, Built to Endure]

Super. But what was that documentary I read about on boingboing? Oh yeah, "This Film is Not Yet Rated."

The MPAA's excuse for this is that it's an alternative to government censorship of films, but as director Kirby Dick shows, it's wildly implausible that such censorship would be found constitutional. The MPAA system treats independents as second-class citizens, issuing gnomic pronouncements about a film's suitability, while treating the big studios that own the MPAA with more solicitude, lavishing editorial suggestions on directors who've come under the thumb of the big six.

This Film is Not Yet Rated makes a compelling case for MPAA ratings system as a form of institutionalized, homophobic puritanism. The ratings board is quite relaxed about violence, especially extreme, gory violence, but takes a dim view of sex, and won't tolerate sex out of the missionary position, nor gay sex of any kind, nor any suggestion of women getting real pleasure out of sex. It's an eye-opening look at America's hidden values, where you can take your kids to see bad guys gunned down by James Bond, but not a lightweight teen-comedy about lesbian girls sent away to anti-gay brainwashing camp.

Oh, and what's the logo for the Motion Picture Association of America?
That's the sort of symbol that just screams, "America!" Doesn't it?

So if your feeling like honoring Jack Valenti, you could either write an article about his 'genius,' or watch him in a pirated episode of Freakazoid. It's the episode called "The Chip." Enjoy!