FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE GRANBURY (DALLAS/FORT WORTH), TX., USA - MARCH 2003
R-13: Do you see a trend forming here? Stealing childhood from children
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"The strangest thing happened in August 2000 as I was updating the ChildCare Action Project (CAP) movie analysis records. I noticed a significant increase in the percentage of R-13 movies. "R-13" is a term I coined to make a point which I will explain."
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September 5, 2000; Updated January 3, 2001; Revived July 2002; Updated March 1, 2003; Updated December 31, 2004.
In the ten years of an on-going study, the ChildCare Action Project: Christian Analysis of American Culture (CAP) Ministry has revealed objective mathematical evidence of the relative position and movement of morality in popular movies, evidence not possible by subjective traditional movie reviews and equally subjective opinion-based evaluations.
The CAP Ministry built a special truly statistical analysis model using more than 30 mathematical operations driven by 80 investigation standards built on His teachings and expectations. Objectivity is assured by the use of the prescribed investigation standards, thus preventing contamination by personal ethics or morals. The CAP analysis model is designed to reveal the relative moral value, or content, of a communication medium.
Verification and validation of the CAP analysis model was performed in 1995 and 1996 by actual use of the model on 39 generally available non-cartoon feature length movies. The 39 movies analyzed during the verification and validation of the CAP analysis model formed the comparative baseline database (see CAP Methodology). With 100 being the highest possible score, movies of the comparative baseline database earned the following CAP Final Scores consistently and reliably:
G: 100 to 87
PG: 86 to 68
PG-13: 67 to 55
R: 54 and below
"R-13" is a term coined by the CAP Ministry to describe a PG-13* movie which earns a CAP Final Score equivalent to scores earned by R-rated movies. Specifically, scores of 54 and below.
Of the movies analyzed in the indicated year, the following percentages of PG-13 movies were "R-13":
UPDATE: The data for 2003 and 2004 and all future years will be compiled and added to this report when adequate funding is provided. Note that in July 2004 Harvard University echoed our findings, a full four years after we published our findings.
Do you see a trend forming here? If you don't the trend line is provided (its equation is y = 32.647Ln(x) + 11.801).
A way of thinking of "R-13" is a movie containing R-rated programming targeted at your 13-year old (and younger) kids. More could be offered to further describe "R-13" but confidence is high that as a parent you are quite capable of gathering the meaning.
In the first five years the percentage of R-13 movies more than quadrupled (an increase of 459%) which says in the year 2000 four hundred and fifty percent more of the PG-13 audience were fed R-rated programming than in 1996/7.
The data for 2001 and 2002 revealed that the percentage of R-13 movies in the PG-13 stratum appeared to show a slight reversal of about 2% each year, biased around 66%. The slight reversal of the trend in 2000 and 2001 should not give us any comfort because about two-thirds of the PG-13 movies analyzed in 2001 and 2002 still earned scores equivalent to the scores earned by R-rated movies. About 66% of the entertainment diet of our PG-13 viewers is still objectively equivalent to R-rated programming in the comparative baseline database most notably in foul language and sexual immorality revealed deeper in the data. Did you ever wonder why more and more kids younger and younger each year are becoming so worldly without becoming wise? Does the expression "stealing childhood from children" now have more definition for you?
There is something almost miraculous and not obvious to the viewer at 2000 where the data begin an ever-so-slight reversal of about 2% in each of 2001 and 2002. The reversal appeared in 2001. We published our first R-13 finding in September 2000. The implication is just too suggestive to be ignored. We certainly have made a name for ourselves even in Hollywood but the implication is probably just wishful thinking.
What if the same trend has happened to PG movies over the same period? To G-rated movies? I think this likely. And what about the coming years? As yet unqualified evidence is that even PG movies have crept or will creep more and more toward the R stratum. In some cases, PG movies have already been revealed to contain programming mathematically equivalent to R-rated programming in one or more of our six investigation areas. And G movies likewise show evidence (as yet unqualified) of sliding away from G toward R, away from wholesome.
This R-13 discovery was made with absolutely no selectivity. For each of the more than 700 movies analyzed the same analysis model was used using the same equations, the same data gathering methodology, the same investigation standards, even the same computer program in the same computer, all setting on the same desk performed by the same investigator.
The R-13 finding is just one of the findings of the CAP Ministry regarding the influence of popular entertainment. Another finding is that sex, drugs and violence are not the strongest presences in entertainment. They take their toll, to be sure, but are not the most invasive and morally corrupting aberrant influence. They are but spinoffs or by-products of the real influence. The real influence is much more basal and is the first in the list of behaviors God hates. More on this and other findings as funding permits.
With a worldwide readership approaching 7,000,000 at the end of this year (2004), and with trust enough in the CAP model for it to be incorporated in a textbook for the University of Oxford (London), in periodicals and professional newsletters, and enough trust in it to be endorsed by mainstream ministries plus uncounted parents and grandparents, CAP findings should be taken seriously. The CAP model gives you the tools and information that might help you be in a better position to make an informed moral decision whether a vehicle of entertainment is fit for your kids (or yourself).
Tom Carder
President
ChildCare Action Project (CAP) Ministry
A nonprofit 501(c)(3) ministry
P. O. Box 177, Granbury, TX 76048-0177
cap@capalert.com
www.capalert.com
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The ChildCare Action Project (CAP) is a nonprofit Christian ministry. We rely on public support. We cannot provide future data without your generous financial support. If you wish to make a tax-deductible donation by credit card to the CAP ministry, please go to our donations page. We are a nonprofit Christian ministry in accordance with Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service Tax Codes.
Thank you for visiting us and may God bless you. Prayerfully, we will provide you with some of the most revealing commentary and investigative reporting you have ever read.
In the name of Jesus:
Lord, Master, Teacher, Savior, God.
President
ChildCare Action Project: Christian Analysis of American Culture (CAP)
