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 and assessing whether the films are appropriate for Christian children. CAP provides its service over the Internet [1] for Christian parents to use. 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, but as of 2006 the site had resumed posting new reviews. Reviews of past films have remained available in the site archives even when new reviews were suspended.

1 The Ratings
2 CAP vs. MPAA
3 Criticism of CAP
4 The ten highest-rated films
5 The ten lowest-rated films
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] The Ratings

CAP rates films based on its findings of things it deems immoral in different categories:

Wanton Violence/Crime (various crimes, violence in events such as war, etc)
Impudence/Hate (racism (or occasionally lack thereof, such as in the review of Bowling for Columbine), children defying parents, lying, corporal punishment being portrayed negatively etc.)
Sexual Immorality (homosexuality, portrayal of nudity, etc.)
Drugs/Alcohol (drinking, smoking, etc)
Offense to God (cursing, defying God's word, following a religion or performing the rituals of a religion other than Christianity, supporting evolution, etc.)
Murder/Suicide

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 cimena.

The ratings are not affected by the context of the things in question —for instance, if a character curses, but the ultimate purpose of the scene is to teach that cursing is wrong, the movie still loses points for the cursing. Even in some of the movies which are Biblical stories, the movies lose points for the sins contained within those stories. 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.

[edit] 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 lenient in assigning its age-based movie ratings." [2] 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.

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).

[edit] Criticism of CAP

By the ministry's own admission, many (allegedly young) individuals have contacted CAP in order to complain about their zealotry and bias. On the CAP site these individuals are marginalized and generalized to be insulting, homosexual, and/or intoxicated, as depicted in their "The emails we get". By doing this many people conisider CAPalerts points invalid due to their close mindedness and unwillingness to take other (including fellow Christians) viewpoints into account section[3].

The ministry has also been accused of bigotry and homophobia. [4].