Parents Give the MPAA System a Great Rating : Movies. Though under fire from other directions, the industry’s voluntary system gets Mom and Dad’s approval.

A whopping 75% of American parents with children under the age of 17 describe the Motion Picture Assn. of America’s voluntary movie rating system as useful, and that endorsement is echoed by 76% of parents of pre-teenagers, the MPAA reported Wednesday.

The MPAA’s new survey, conducted by the Opinion Research Corp. in Princeton, N.J., gives the ratings systems some of its highest marks ever, despite recent criticism from some legislators (who think it is too lenient) and some filmmakers (who say it is too restrictive).

The national survey of 2,300 adults was conducted July 8-22, during heated public debate about the impact of violent entertainment on youth and just as news was breaking that the late Stanley Kubrick had digitally altered his last film, “Eyes Wide Shut,” to obtain an R-rating.

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Even as film critics were decrying the rating system’s chilling effect on Kubrick’s creative vision, however, most American parents were lauding it. The MPAA’s 1999 survey results are in line with those of previous years. Since 1985, the system’s approval rating among parents has never dropped below 72%.

“The ratings were designed for parents, not film critics, directors or studios,” said Jack Valenti, the MPAA president who created the ratings system in 1968 to provide cautionary warnings about film content. “I am pleased but not necessarily surprised by these [survey] results.”

When asked, “How useful do you think the motion picture industry’s rating system--with the symbols G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17--is as a guide for deciding what movies children should see?,” 75% of parents of children under age 17 said very useful or fairly useful, 23% said not very useful and 2% did not know.

Parents of children under age 13, when asked the same question, answered this way: 76% very or fairly useful, 21% not very useful and 3% undecided.

The MPAA survey numbers also jibe with the most recent Los Angeles Times Poll, conducted in February, which asked 1,249 adults how useful the rating system is as a guide for deciding what movies children should see. A full 76% found the system useful, while 12% said it was not useful and 12% said they did not know.

“At a time when the rating system is under fire from a number of different sources, it is gratifying to know that we are still of service to those for whom the system was primarily designed: the parents of America,” said William Kartozian, president of the National Assn. of Theatre Owners. He pledged his members “will continue to carry out their shared responsibility with parents to seek to ensure that youngsters view movies that their parents agree they should see.”