This Film is Not Yet Rated
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Have you ever wondered who are the people behind MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America)? MPAA, though a film rating board, has been operating secretively. This film talks about the ratings (G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17) given by MPAA and their biasness while rating movies. It doesn’t personally matter to me whether a film is rated NC-17 or not. If it look’s good, regardless of its MPAA rating, I’ll see it.
The most disturbing thing for me was that, a film is rated based on the sex and nudity. You can put a bullet through a hundred heads but show a little pubic hair and you’ll get slapped with an NC-17. In Europe, its exactly opposite, they put the higher ratings on violence. Whereas, Americans are afraid to show general population a skin but they’re ready to let them see brains burst. This virulent situation of movies is brought up in Kirby Dick’s excellent documentary.
The movie is just not limited to this. Kirby hires a private detective to help him reveal who the MPAA raters are. Kirby tries to find out who was on this secretive board so that those who have been rated by this board could find out who stands in judgement of their cinematic work. And finally, he does find out all involved in the process. Most of those who rate the movies, are parents of childrens who are well over 20 years of age. Although Jack Valenti (Founder, MPAA ratings system) has been telling people that the raters are parents of children between 7-16, what Kirby found out was exactly the opposite.
There’s no real way to rate a film. These people rate the movie based on how they ‘feel’ it. If they happen to be in a bad mood that day, you’re screwed. And the power resides on the hands of senior raters. Even if a movie is voted 7 to 2 for R, a senior rater can easily revoke the votings and rate the movie NC-17 without any problem.
Moreover, a gay love scene will most likely get you an NC-17 but a man/woman sex scene will get you an R. This is how the raters rate the movie, based on how ‘natural’ it seems. The F-word is likely to get you an R rating unless you use it just once. Matt Stone (South Park, Team America) shares his experience regarding this.
MPAA
Another fact brought up on the movie is that, as long as you don’t show bloods, your movie won’t be rated R. A James Bond film has never been given an R rating, but Bond has killed more people than almost any movie character. MPAA feels totally comfortable to allow people watch this violence. You could get away by not showing the blood that results from gunshot wounds. But, films like Boys Don’t Cry get slapped with an NC-17 rating because of their sexual content.
Kimberly Peirce ( Director – Boys Don’t Cry) says that see was told that her film was slapped with NC-17 not because, Brandon was shot in the head, but because, the orgasm lasted for longer time in the scene of gay sex.
Another example would be that, the movie Jersey Girl originally got an R because Liv Tyler talked about masturbating. I seriously cannot understand this.
Later on the documentary, Dick puts up side by side comparison of movies which got R and movies which got NC-17. When kirby Dick puts up these side-by-side comparisons on screen, its obvious how biased the MPAA board is toward human sexuality but very accepting of violence.
The documentary originally, had been rated NC-17 for some graphic sexual content. But, some changes were made to the the dvd version, and it has not been submitted for MPAA rating yet.
A word of wisdom, If you are a movie fanatic, don’t see it based on its MPAA rating. MPAA’s ratings are seriously flawed. See it because it interests you.
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