Icons

Key for Ratings Icons

This page contains an alphabetical index of ratings icons. For the ratings themselves, see the ratings index.

General-Purpose Ratings Icons

Ratings Specific to Soap Operas Icons

The following icons (hopefully) are meaningful only for soap operas:

(Y&R only)

Abortion. The paradox of soaps abhor the concept of abortion and yet it is often needed as a plot device, so watch for pregnant folk to find themselves falling down stairs, falling off ladders or chairs, or being run into by moving people or objects. After all, these are the "socially acceptable" forms of abortion--the forms that risk the mother's life. I'll use the label in its most general form; if the writers (including myself) feel it's best for someone to undo a pregnancy through whatever means, it gets the label. And, I must add, I was thrilled as I was designing this icon to see how well the edge of a free-standing ladder resembles a big ``A''. There's something neatly symmetric about that.

Adoption. Not everyone thinks that allowing people the option of trading babies around is a good thing. If there are going to be people who object to abortion, there has to be a group that cares about this as well.

Alcohol. Some say the drinking of alcohol on TV glamorizes it and implicitly promotes alcohol use.

Aliens. This is for aliens, real or impersonated or imagined.

Atomic Devices. I suppose I could just label these weapons, but I think they're scarier than that and they need their own category.

Bad Business. Y&R is full to the gills with bad business practices. The typical office size, the fact that no one gets anything done, the fact that there are no meaningful discussions of product, the fact that decisions are made for foolish reasons. A complete list of problems in the way business is depicted would be huge. The problem is that this gives people a bad image of what happens at businesses, and it doesn't make for very realistic situations for those who already know what business is like.

Bad Physics. This category is for rapid aging, rewritten past plotlines, instantaneous transport across town, different positions of the sun for things going on in different plotlines at the same time, and anything else that just plain defies logic, graphity, the time/space continuum, etc.

Bad Taste. There are a few episodes to which some might be drawn to say "Ew! Gross!" Surprisingly, I found a lot of readers who said "Hey! Cool!" to these episodes. However, I conclude from this that the surviving viewers of Y&R are just those with an amazingly strong stomach, perhaps due to the tremendous amount of nonsense they are asked to swallow on a daily basis watching the show itself. Whatever the case, you can judge for yourself. I have subjectively attached this label in a few cases as a way of saying, "Yeah, I admit it. It is kind of gross and might violate some people's sense of good taste." At least it now won't be in a surprising way.

Bad Words. "Another Way Out" voluntarily refrains from using "very strong" language, so there is no icon for that. The F-word, for example, does not occur. This isn't for any deep philosophical reason so much as that it would sound out-of-character for the characters to speak and I have never found it necessary in order to make the points I need to make. The words "damn" and "hell" do occur a lot, however, and they are mostly what this icon identifies. So if you don't like those words, then don't read these episodes. But don't expect to see much of Victor either, since "damn" is a pretty regular part of his speech pattern.

Buggy. This rating is special to AWO and Y&R. It warns of the presence of "The Bug" (Cricket), daughter of the producer, Bill Bell. This label will probably be a positive to some, a negative to others, and ignored by many.

Chauvinism. Mostly I'm using this to refer to male chauvanism--particularly, the practice of several men on the show of treating the women as less than equal in many different ways.

Child Neglect. I would think this kind of plotline would scare young children, so I've tried to notice it. This includes all plotlines involving parents who don't seem to remember they have kids, parents who treat their kids badly, parents who feed their kids unhealthy food, etc.

Cloning. I have no idea if people consider this offensive or not, but it strikes me that it's worth mentioning just in case.

Crime. This rating is only used for crimes not involving violence. These are the so-called ``white collar'' crimes, such as ``blackmail'' or ``theft''. For any crime involving violence, we use the violence rating instead.

Death. A complex topic. Not for small children. (As if much of anything on a soap was.)

Divorce. Some people find this offensive. Odd that the religious right doesn't ask to have it banned from TV-land. I don't think you could do soap operas without it, though. Still, I've flagged it--mostly just for the fun of it.

Drugs. Use of drugs other than alcohol is depicted by this. Alcohol gets its own label.

Evangelism. Religious tolerance is about not having someone jam their religion down your throat. Some people find "evangelism" to threaten that situation because at its core, it is not tolerant of other religions--it is always seeking to change them. Such people may have another religion of their own, or no religion at all. In either case, they may find evangelism offensive.

Gambling. Should we glorify gambling? It creates a lot of strife in th world and it's easy to understand why some wouldn't want to se it happen.

Gays. This is used to label the presence of gay/lesbian storylines. Whether you're the sort of person who likes and wants to seek out storylines like this or who shrinks from the idea that people should be allowed to be happy in their own way, this tag may sometimes be useful.

Ghosts. This is for ghosts and other supernatural phenomena (except aliens, which have their own icon). It doesn't matter if they're real or impersonated or imagined.

Incest. By using something in a plotline, I don't mean to endorse the act. Funny that no one thinks that putting murder in a plotline endorses murder as a way of life, but putting incest or child pornography or racism or certain other very taboo topics into a plot causes people to think you're endorsing those things. I do think there is (or ought to be) a place for such topics in conventional media because there are subtle and complex issues involved. By refusing to ever even mention these issues, I think we sometimes promote their silent acceptance, if only because we make it very hard for those who suffer to ever speak about their experiences. AWO touches on incest only briefly, here and there, and only as a reminder that there are issues that Y&R could explore if it wanted to. Yes, it would have to be done with great delicacy--perhaps more than I've done here. But it might be worth the risk.

Infidelity. Ah, the heartblood of every soap. Just try to find a Y&R without it. But still, I think any ratings system worth its salt should flag this so that it can be used as a guide even for people not familiar with the commonplace antics of daytime drama.

Innuendo. A mainstay of adult entertainment--especially when explicit graphics can't be used. As much as possible, I try to arrange it so that the less sophisticated viewer has an innocent interpretation to grasp at without too much effort (though it may still invite questions like "what's funny about that?"). Nevertheless, there is adult theming going on here and I'd rather label it properly than remove it.

Intolerance. This label is used when plotlines involve people being intolerant of one another. Things like racism go under this category. People who are very sure that they and people like them are fundamentally right and people who are different are wrong may find kindred spirits in these plotlines. Unfortunately, though, since I'm not really a big fan of intolerance, they may not be satisfied with all the endings I've devised. People who don't like to see intolerance might want to avoid these plotlines, or they might want to peek in cautiously and see what ends I envision for intolerant folk.

Irreverence. I admit I take some potshots at organized religion in these AWO episodes. If that's not to your taste, you'll want to skip these episodes.

Kinky Sex. For those of you who are looking this up because you want to read about it, don't get your hopes up. This is probably more of interest to those who shy from even the slightest deviation from traditional sex.

Missing. Sometimes characters disappear suddenly without any warning or resolution to their plotline. Many viewers find this offensive. If this were required to be labeled on shows, I bet writers would do it less. I'm adding this label mostly on plots where I've resolved a plotline that Y&R didn't.

Recycled Plotlines. I'm using a pretty high threshold here--I don't mean just that there was a marriage or murder and here's another. I mean when the writers have taken no pains to make the basic situation different. And here, as with the "Unending Plots" label, I'm referring to the underlying Y&R plotline, not my own. (Though if someone wants to make the case that I'm getting unreasonably repetitive on one or more of my plots, I'm open to arguments on the matter.)

Sex. For one reason or another, I suspect everyone wants to know this one.

Transsexuals. The issue doesn't come up a lot in AWO, actually, but I suppose there could be those who think it's either an especially fun idea or an especially gross idea. So I marked it. All in all, though, I think it's tastefully done.

Unending Plot. Unending plots really offend a lot of people. If writers had to label them as such, perhaps there would be fewer. In fact, AWO plots generally end in the same episode that they begin, so this icon is used in a different sense than most of the others--primarily to denote places where Y&R has an unending plot that AWO is trying to correct.

Violence. It's not nice when people do things to one another that injure them or that they just plain don't want. Parents may rightly want to screen for this kind of stuff.

Weapons. There are those among us who think the mere presence of weapons on shows, whether or not actually fired, encourages society to solve its problems through their use (or threat of their use). Also, there are some crimes committed on the show which don't involve violence because no shots are fired, and this icon is sometimes used along with a Crime icon to mean "a gun or knife was present but not actually used".

The ``Another Way Out'' series is NOT affiliated with, nor is it authorized by: The Young and the Restless, CBS-TV or Sony Pictures.