Movie Ratings: Has Honesty Gone Missing?

This is like giving your own product a quality certificate. Just like a shopkeeper saying his goods are "great" and the neighbour's goods are "not good," the same thing is happening here too. Only, this isn't about groceries; this is about movie ratings.

Before talking about the present situation, let's go back a few decades.

There used to be a magazine called Sitara. It started the Sitara Awards, and these award functions were held on a grand scale.

The award selection was known to be very fair and genuine. Nobody ever questioned their decisions. Very soon, these awards earned great respect.

But suddenly, Sitara's owner Ramoji Rao announced that he was stopping the awards. Everyone was shocked at first. But after hearing his reason, people appreciated his honesty.

His reason was simple - his company was entering film production, and it wouldn't be fair to make films and also give awards to their own films.

Cut to the present...

Some overseas social media handles earned a name for giving honest ratings. After gaining popularity, those same handles entered film distribution.

Now, naturally, they favour their own films. They can't resist giving their own films a slightly higher rating. At the same time, they end up giving lower ratings to other films releasing in competition. This has led to criticism and accusations that they're using ratings to push their business.

One of the producers shared, "Not only that, in case the producers deny selling the film to such critics at the price they demand and move on to either self-release or work with another distributor, those critics would tarnish the film with worse ratings in their reviews. Thus, they are blackmailing the producers!"

This is clearly unethical. If you want to do business, you should stay away from reviews and ratings. And if you love doing reviews, then you shouldn't enter business. That is the moral principle.

But by ignoring this principle, they are now facing sharp criticism from filmmakers.