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ChildCare Action Project
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The ChildCare Action Project (also known as CAP or CAPAlert) is a Fundamentalist Christian entertainment media analysis service devoted to reviewing the content of films, as opposed to reviewing the message, entertainment or artistic value of the film itself. The reviews are based on a rigorous scoring mechanism developed by the reviewer based on Christian standards, as he sees them.
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Encyclopedia
The ChildCare Action Project (also known as CAP or CAPAlert) is a Fundamentalist Christian entertainment media analysis service devoted to reviewing the content of films, as opposed to reviewing the message, entertainment or artistic value of the film itself. The reviews are based on a rigorous scoring mechanism developed by the reviewer based on Christian standards, as he sees them. CAP provides its service over the Internet. CAP is based in Granbury, Texas, and is headed by Thomas A. Carder.
CAP has on occasion suspended or limited the posting of new reviews due to lack of funding; the site is able to review a limited number of films and is appealing for funds. Reviews of past films have remained available in the site archives even when new reviews were suspended. Thomas A. Carder is currently seeking secular employment but claims that his efforts are hampered by being over 50 and a Christian.
The Ratings
Most film rating systems use the categories of sex, violence, bad language and drug use. CAP is similar, but expands these to six categories as follows:
- Wanton Violence/Crime (violence and crime, in addition to murder/suicide category below)
- Impudence/Hate (originally Impunity/Hate; racism, children defying parents, lying, swearing etc)
- Sexual Immorality (originally sex/homosexuality) (sexual content, including both immorality and on-screen depictions)
- Drugs/Alcohol (drinking, scenes in bars, smoking, etc)
- Offence to God (using God's name to swear, defying God's word, usage of magic or "witchcraft," supporting evolution, "Hindu false gods/worship" etc.)
- Murder/Suicide (distinct from the first category in focusing on the taking of human life in non-justifiable circumstances, as opposed to war or self-defence)
The initials of these six categories were chosen to spell the word WISDOM.
CAP scores a movie by starting with the number 100 (for a complete absence of offensive content) in each category and subtracting points in each category based on the number of, and seriousness of, these offenses. These numbers go through a series of calculations, and the end result is the movie's rating. The CAP Ministry claims that a low score on the Impudence/Hate scale is the greatest indication that a movie will also score poorly on at least one other scale. It also claims that there is little difference between the scores indicated by a small segment of a movie, around 10 minutes, and the overall score of a film in its entirety. According to CAP's Rule of 1000, behaviours that score a 10 repeated 100 times in a movie results in a similarly offensive movie in which behaviours that score 100 are only repeated 10 times. CAP claims this erodes perceptions of acceptable behavior in cinema.
The ratings are not affected by the context of the things in question; for instance, the background portrayal of racial segregation in Ray loses the film points. Even in some of the movies which are Biblical stories, the movies lose points for the sins contained within those stories. Also, films based on Christian fiction, such as Left Behind and the Chronicles of Narnia films, lose points because of the presence of occult elements. It is important to point out that nowhere on the site does the author suggest that only movies with a certain point value should be watched regardless of other factors. The author's theory is that he provides the data, and it's up to parents to use that data as well as the context of the movie to decide for themselves if they want their child to see the movie or not.
One notable policy is that regarding the "portion viewed" of films. In some early reviews, such as that of The Birdcage, the reviewer left during the film and gave an opinion piece against it but with no numerical rating. In other cases, however, results are calculated on the basis that analysis "is just as accurate for the portion viewed as it would be for the entire film if the entire film were analyzed". The Rules of Attraction was given a score of 29 on the basis of 14 minutes, during which nothing could be noted of the film's suicide-related content, since that occurred after the reviewer had left on account of its "vulgarity".
CAP vs. MPAA
CAP complains that the MPAA is lowering the standards of its ratings system, and that films that should receive an R rating have received a PG-13 rating instead. CAP refers to such films as "R-13" films.
In 2004, researchers from the Kids Risk Project at the Harvard School of Public Health published a study which "found a significant increase of violence, sex and profanity in films over the 11-year period [from 1992 to 2003], suggesting that the MPAA became increasingly more relaxed in assigning its age-based movie ratings." After the release of this study, CAP announced on its web site: "Harvard agrees with us! without knowing it 4 years AFTER we proved the point."
However, on a few occasions CAP has been more lenient toward films than the MPAA was. One example is School of Rock, which CAP believed deserved a PG rating, although the MPAA gave it a PG-13 rating. This was due more to technicalities in CAP's unique system for rating films than any favorable opinions toward the movie. Another such film was AVP: Alien Vs. Predator.
Theoretically, it could be possible for a movie to be rated G by the MPAA but be considered deserving of an R rating by CAP. For that to happen, the film would likely have to contain content deemed offensive in all six of CAPalert's categories but not of such a nature as to be considered offensive by the MPAA (such as mentioning evolution, using the word God, and slapstick violence).
The ten highest-rated films
- Grandpa's Friendly Workshop: Making Friends (Total score: 100/100)
- Mary Poppins (Total score: 100/100)
- Baby Miracle volume 1 (Total score: 100/100)
- Who Gets the House? (Total score: 100/100)
- Big Bird in China (Total score: 98/100)
- Baby Miracle volume 2 (Total score: 98/100)
- The Tigger Movie (Total score: 98/100)
- The Miracle of the Cards (Total score: 97/100)
- Piglet's Big Movie (Total score: 97/100)
- Baby Miracle volume 3 (Total score: 97/100)
The ten lowest-rated films
All of the films are rated R except for Beowulf and The Fog remake, which are PG-13. CAP believes that a film scoring lower than 54 is consistent with R ratings given in the past, meaning these two films are extreme examples of R-13s.
Criticism
The project has been criticized for being narrow-minded in its attitudes and ignoring other people's views. Perhaps most importantly, its rating system is biased against any content that runs contrary to its interpretation of Biblical ideology, such as homosexuality, paganism, atheism and Darwinian evolution. The site contains a "mailbag" section dealing with the issue of antagonistic e-mails, as well as details on some of its film review pages. Roger Ebert has also criticized the website. It has been suggested that the site has some of the trappings of an internet hoax, raising money from donations by those who believe in it.
See also
External links
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