[neverending]

Let's not forget the MPAA is a voluntary trade organization. Its ratings hold no legal standing. There is no film censorship outside the censorship of commerce. Most theatres today will not show a film without an MPAA rating, but they are not legally bound by this. It's very likely that any theatre that DID show a film that wasn't rated would find itself blacklisted by the studios and would have a hard time finding films to show.

In the early days of cinema each state had a film board that had to approve every film before it could be shown, but with the creation of the Hayes Office and the Production Code those largely fell by the wayside, and with landmark court decisions that pretty much did away with obscenity laws, filmmakers and governing boards found their roles reversed. They now had to prove that a film or other work of art had no socially redeeming value before it could be banned. Thank you Henry Miller.

The use of the term censorship is a tricky matter. There's only one type of content that is truly censored in the USA, and by that I mean it cannot be sold, shown, distributed, ot even owned, legally. The MPAA doesn't censor movies. They make recommendations. A studio can decide if it wants to comply with the recommendations. If they don't, the MPAA can rate the film X or refuse to give it a rating. Both alternatives are a financial death knell for a major studio release, or even small indie films.

BigHead is correct when he says things were a lot more lenient in the past. I watched Duel on Cable recently. Before the film the was an announcement that the film had been edited for content. Let's get this straight- Duel was originally released as a TV MOVIE ON A BROADCAST NETWORK. Today it has to be edited to be shown on a Cable network. That's some serious social regression.

So, perhaps the question by the original poster is appropriate. Censorship has changed. There are no more state boards of censorship. The Hayes Office is gone. But we have the erconomic stranglehold of the (voluntary) MPAA.