Why is KinoCensor needed?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

There are many sites on the Internet today that allow you to rate films. The most famous of them in the Russian segment are KinoPoisk, Film. Ru, Kino-Teatr. Ru, FilmPro and others. All of them provide approximately the same functionality that allows the user to get general information about the film, as well as rate it from the “like / dislike” position (put from 1 to 10 stars) and write a review. A natural question arises - why in this situation create another similar resource? Why is KinoCensor needed, and how does it differ from other sites? The main difference between the KinoCensor and the existing analogs lies in its system of evaluation and rating of films. It consists of 7 simple steps aimed at ensuring that the user rates the film not from the “Like / Dislike” position, but from the position “How does the film affect the viewer / society?”.

You can see it clearly on the website:

The classic rating system, aimed at a mass audience and used today on all resources devoted to cinema, is a simple algorithm that allows the user to rate a film by giving it from 1 to 10 stars. At first glance, everything is logical. The person watched the movie, gave it a grade on a 10-point scale, and that's done. But as practice shows, under such a system, films that are often absolutely destructive and harmful to society (which carry a destructive ideology), provided that they are well filmed, receive high marks and ratings. Or vice versa - light and creative pictures are underestimated. Why is this happening? The answer lies in the fact that the mass audience today is accustomed to perceive cinema in a purely entertaining format, i.e. he evaluates the film not from the standpoint of what the picture brings to the viewer and society (what it teaches - good or bad), but from the standpoint of "how it entertains me." If it entertains well, then the mass viewer gives a higher rating, even if a poisonous filling is wrapped in a beautiful wrapper. If it entertains badly, then the score will be low, no matter what important topics are disclosed in the work.

Almost the entire system of official film criticism works to maintain this system, which immerses readers in the discussion of secondary issues - the play of actors, the quality of special effects, the cost of scenery, etc., but almost never affects the semantic component of the works, or presents it in a distorted form.

As a result, the average viewer, accustomed to perceiving cinema as a means of entertainment (and not control), in most cases evaluates films according to the degree of their emotional impact, and does not ask questions of analyzing algorithms and behavior models transmitted through artistic images. Individual users who, in spite of the existing system, evaluate precisely the semantic component, are not able by their decision to significantly affect the final result of the vote, since their votes are lost in the general mass. The bottom line is what we all know very well - modern mass cinema is increasingly contributing to the degradation of society.

The system of film criticism and film production awards existing today is an ideal field for all sorts of manipulations, as it allows using cinema to broadcast absolutely different ideas (both destructive and constructive) into society, simply wrapping them in a beautiful wrapper and taking advantage of the unconsciousness of the masses in terms of the influence of films. There will be people who will say that the rating "good / bad" or "useful / harmful" is a relative category. Of course, the degree of subjectivity in any assessment is always present, but an objective indicator of whether a film is “bad” or “good” is ultimately the consequences of its distribution among a mass audience. If a picture stimulates individuals and society as a whole to intellectual and moral development, helps to find a solution to some personal or social problems, acts as an instrument of cognition, then as a result of its spread, society will begin to live better. If the picture carries a destructive ideology, promotes a selfish and consumer worldview, bad habits, or, for example, distorts historical events, then its dissemination will contribute to the further degradation of individual viewers and the entire society. It is the assessment of the consequences of the spread of the picture that ultimately determines its qualitative assessment. And the assessment of the consequences is always based on the analysis of the transmitted algorithms and behavior models, which in an extremely condensed form can be formulated as an answer to the question "what does the film teach?" To change the situation in the modern film industry, the KinoCensor project was created, the evaluation system of which motivates the user to think in the right direction and, ultimately, to evaluate the film correctly. KinoCensor is convenient to use both for ordinary users and for those who are already accustomed to assessing the semantic component.

The resource will be especially useful to all parents thinking about the impact of cinema on children. And what is the rating system, which was discussed in this article - it is easier to look at the site, and at the same time to rate a couple of films that you recently watched.