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Scene Stealer - The Web Is Pouncing on Hollywood’s Ratings 

The Motion Picture Association of America started rating films in 1968 to indicate suitability for children. Ever since, some group or another -- whether of parents or politicians or filmmakers -- has complained: Too broad. Too easily manipulated. Too arbitrary.

The association, financed by the movie studios, has occasionally bowed to public pressure and tinkered with its evaluation process. In 2007, for instance, it started considering smoking alongside sex, violence and profanity when assessing films.

But the ratings system is coming under fresh attack via the Web, and that may make bigger changes inevitable . . .

The standard Hollywood ratings -- G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17 -- must now compete with all manner of Internet-based ratings alternatives, some of which are gaining new traction through social networking tools.

SceneSmoking.org, which monitors tobacco use in movies, issues pink, light gray, dark gray or black lungs to films, depending on how smoking is depicted.

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