Jack Valenti, long time head of the Motion Picture Association of American, died Thursday of complications suffered from a stroke he had in March. The 85-year-old held Hollywood in an iron grip for over 38 years as the MPAA’s president. Valenti is directly responsible for the movie ratings system America has embraced. A lot of the MPAA’s current policies regarding things like piracy and strip searches before you enter the theater are a direct result of his tenure. Though perhaps we shouldn’t judge him too harshly, since his retirement in 2004 the MPAA seems to have only gotten stricter.
Before forming the MPAA in 1966, Valenti was a big time political figure. His agency was in charge of press for President Kennedy during his fatal visit to Dallas in 1963 and Valenti is actually present in the famous photograph of Vice President Lyndon Johnson being sworn in aboard Air Force One. Luckily, he avoided most of the era’s wilder assassination conspiracy theories. Johnson was not to be so lucky.
Whatever you think of Valenti, it’s the MPAA movie ratings system that’s his real legacy. When he created it in 1968, it came with four ratings. G, M, R, and X. Ah X. I really miss that one. G and R have stuck around, but M has been replaced by PG and PG-13 while X has been replaced by the much more friendly sounding (but much less fun) NC-17. What started as a simple organization designed to rate movies would eventually, under Valenti’s leadership, become an all powerful arbitrator of Hollywood behavior. Want your movie rated? Then you’d better do things Valenti’s way. Hollywood did and continues to.
Valenti’s MPAA was also responsible for trashing VCRs when Sony’s Betamax first hit the market. He once told a congressional panel on the subject, “I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.” Luckily no one listened to him, but Valenti’s take on new technologies was at least consistent. For instance in the late 90s he was at the forefront of the movement to throttle the internet to prevent copyright infringement, making himself the bane of geeks everywhere.
It’s hard to know what to think of Jack Valenti. Of him his friend Jean M. Prewitt, president of the Independent Film & Television Alliance says, “I’ve known Jack for more than 25 years as a colleague, friend and mentor. He was the absolute consummate gentleman who loved every facet of our industry and its people – no matter what their role in the business. We’ll never forget Jack and his legacy. There will never be anyone like him.” Is his ratings system a good idea? Yes. Does it always work the way it’s supposed to? Probably not. But whatever he was or means to you Valenti has left his mark by molding and shaping the movie industry through sheer force of will into what it is today. Whether or not the MPAA endures his legacy will.
