Are children under sixteen allowed? Ministry of Culture Supported Initiative
Children do not need protection?
The Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation supported the initiative to abolish age marking for films and any other works of art. The exception will be the “18 +” restriction, which applies to all kinds of “strawberries”, drug use scenes, cruelty and violence. That is, intermediate restrictions are eliminated, which were designed to protect our younger generation from information that could harm their health, mental and intellectual development, in accordance with the age of the intended audience.
In general, a mandatory clarification needs to be made: in the Russian Federation, a federal law “On the Protection of Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development” was adopted and entered into force on 2012 of the year. The provisions of this law are mandatory for all regions and organizations of the country, and no cultural institutions or film distribution offices are an exception. And the initiative proposed by the State Duma deputies and supported by the Ministry of Culture, at least involves ignoring this law in its current version. Or rewriting the law and making appropriate amendments to it, which in itself is more legal, but not the fact that it is more appropriate.
History There are more than a dozen years of age restrictions in our art, and especially in cinema. As many still remember, in Soviet times, movie posters at the box office often featured the words "Children under 16 years old are not allowed." Actually, then they didn’t especially bother with the gradation of age restrictions, although formally there were restrictions “0 +” and “6 +”, but with one significant difference from today - under the “16 +” restriction almost everything was connected that was related to sex, eroticism, violence, drugs and the like.
Now the gradation is much wider, which has become the main reason for this initiative. We have a restriction “For all ages”, that is, without any restrictions at all, as well as “6 +”, “12 +”, “16 +” and “18 +”. Briefly deciphering them, we get something like this:
"For all ages": a ban on any mate, any violence, smoking, alcohol, drugs, nudity and so on. Heroes, if they can curse, then only by well-known euphemisms like "Damn it!", Etc.
6 + restriction: short-term and occasional references (displays) of illnesses (not severe), accidents without serious consequences and not degrading the dignity of victims are allowed. At the same time, excessive naturalism of filming / descriptions is not welcome. It is also possible to show some illegal actions, but it is necessary in such a plot frame that it does not justify these actions and does not call for their commission. Roughly speaking, evil should be exposed and roughly punished, and the police officer Uncle Styopa should clearly tell the children that bad uncles will be in prison.
12 + restriction: episodic descriptions or displays of cruelty, violence (other than sexual) are allowed, scenes are forbidden to show “inciting to antisocial actions and exploiting interest in sex”.
16 + restriction: cruelty and violence are already allowed to be shown here, although excessive naturalism is also not welcome. Alcohol and drugs can be mentioned, but not encouraged. You can use some curses, but not derivative words on the letters "x", "p", "b" and "e";
And the final restriction, “18 +”: showing children is strictly prohibited in any case, even accompanied by parents, teachers or psychologists. Brutal violence, open sex, drug, alcohol, homosexual intercourse and the like perversions (except for those expressly prohibited by the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
I ask readers to pay attention: the above are not the official formulations used in the law and the relevant documents of the Ministry of Culture, but their free arrangement by the author. Otherwise, we would have to quote too large a “sheet” of unreadable text, which is hardly appropriate in this case. But those who wish themselves can find the appropriate language on the Internet and compare them with what is written above.
Children are nothing, profit is everything!
On the one hand, it seems that there are too many gradations and it can be difficult to distinguish one category from another. Actually, this is precisely what motivated the position of the Ministry of Culture and personally Vladimir Medinsky. But there is another side to the issue: from the point of view of psychologists and educators, there are even too few gradations!
According to experts, the difference between a six-year-old and a twelve-year-old child is simply enormous, and it is certainly higher than the difference between a sixteen-year-old and an eighteen-year-old. Accordingly, to more accurately identify possible threats and stop them, one could introduce another intermediate gradation. What exactly would it be worth considering, let us leave it for the psychologists to discuss, it is only important that experts see this as a necessity.
On the other hand, there is a position of filmmakers and distributors who would like to simplify at any cost all licensing procedures associated with obtaining a film rental license. For them, this is a profit issue. And often very big profits. A movie recommended for family viewing is guaranteed to collect more revenue than a movie that has received the “18 +” restriction. And if so, we need to very seriously understand the question of who is behind this initiative: experts who are tired of work or movie distributors who are greedy for profit.
It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that the age ranking of films (and we are frank in the law, we are talking primarily about them) is accepted in most countries, including the main legislator of cinema fashion, the United States. We will not dwell in detail on American standards, we will only say that ours are largely copied from them. And what is surprising, there is no one in the mind does not come to cancel them.
Now about what will be canceled and “recommended for family viewing” and acceptable for children of any age to be unaccompanied by parents if lawmakers automatically, mindlessly remove all intermediate age restrictions. These are scenes of violence (without particular cruelty), and the use of drugs and alcohol, and scenes of a sexual nature, and eroticism. Yes, in a strict form, all this will fall under the “18 +” restriction, but in a slightly relaxed, muffled form - please, for decades, see how uncles smoke hash and how much fun they have. Look, seven-year-old, how uncles and aunts make love, just turning away from the camera and not showing a close-up of the genitals. Take a look at how a car crashes into a crowd of pedestrians and how bloodied bodies scatter in all directions ...
In addition, the absence of intermediate age restrictions makes it possible to show certain films and programs on TV channels at the most rated time, that is, in the evening, up to twenty-three hours. At this time, I remind you, most of the slightly older children can not be driven away from the TV, and parents often sit with them at the “blue screens”. The fact that they already broadcast all kinds of game now does not bother anyone. Let's add some more highly artistic violence with a touch of heavy erotica and drugs.
Minister of culture or lobbyist?
Well, the most interesting thing: to do all of the above without changing the corresponding law “On the Protection of Children from Information harmful to their health and development” is simply impossible. Therefore, it will also have to be changed. And to change, as we understand it, in the direction of softening the mentioned norms and standards, designed to protect our children from too rude and shameless manifestations of adult life.
A change in the relevant law can really seriously affect the overall safety of our children and their moral, mental and intellectual health. In the end, they didn’t accept it from a good life, the dominance of cruelty and almost undisguised pornography simply made our society respond to the problem and put at least some obstacles in the way of the spreading infection.
I will express my personal opinion. I have never been an ardent antagonist of Minister Medinsky. Probably there were flaws in his work, but there were many good ones. However, what he is going to approve now cannot be approved in any way. Yes, the system is imperfect, it needs to be refined and polished, it needs some corrections and more serious measures to force movie distributors and movie theater owners to comply with the prescribed norms and restrictions. But to take the path of least resistance, having generally abolished all intermediate restrictions, justifying it with the fact that no one will not fulfill them anyway, is a mistake.
If we are guided by this logic, then we and the Criminal Code need to be canceled - still no one executes. And if not the entire Criminal Code, then at least its sections devoted to economic crimes, corruption, money laundering and so on. Anyway, after all ...
But if we approach the issue with a normal logic inherent in any reasonable person who does not give a damn about his people, then such initiatives should be recognized as extremely dangerous. Therefore, let's ask Mr. Medinsky not to try to make life easier for himself and the film distributors, but to continue the necessary work to improve the norms and rules of the age limit when showing “works of art”. Moreover, it is really not a sin here to borrow foreign experience, which has already been worked out for a long time and even proved to be quite good.
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