Letters to the Editor
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you're kidding, right?
The motion picture industry as the keeper of America's morals? Give me a break.
These are the people who give us uplifting fare like Saw, Hostel, Freddy vs. Jason and I Know What You Did Last Summer.
It's ok to show someone taking life; it's not OK to show someone making love.
Media never influences behavior; it only reflects society’s ills. That’s why corporate America spends billions on advertising and product placement, right?
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Better ratings?
Perhaps what we need is a more fine-grained rating system. Instead of making assumptions about what parents will find inappropriate for their kids, the MPAA could put out a report with various things rated on a sliding scale, e.g.
(1 is "best", 9 is "worst")
Movie: Death Force 3000
Language: 8
Violence: 9
Nudity: 5
Sex: 2
Drug Use: 1
... or something like that. Of course it would take up a little more space in the movie ads, but you could shorten it to "L8V9N5S2D1" or something like that, if you had to.
Eh, just a thought.
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This isn't censorship on the part of the MPAA, and it doesn't owe anyone a wide release
The fact is, theater chains decide what they will and won't show, and newspapers decide what they will or won't advertise. You can criticize them either for censorship or unfair business practices, but it isn't the MPAA's repsonsibility.
If filmmakers decide to deal with greater sexual content, or a level of violence great enough to garner an NC-17 (or enough that they choose not to put the movie before the board), that is their choice. And as with any choice about content, it's going to effect the potential for the movie to make a profit. Complain about our puritan society, or the willingness of the American people to only gravitate towards the most highly commercialized projects, but it is not, absolutely not, a case of censorship on the part of the MPAA. These movies are not halted from being made, and to my knowledge this doesn't interfere with a DVD release.
It means that a kind of movie has been made that some business owners don't care to be associated with. That's what happens when you push the boundaries. And I support doing that if you believe in the movie you're making. But there are obvious consequences to making a more graphic movie, just as there are consequences to making a quiet, complex work of art vs. a loud, crass commercial project. All considerations about the kind of movie you make will effect distribution and profits, and even potential word-of-mouth. No one is owed a mass-market nation-wide release.
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I think Chris put it really well
I also think that 80 years of the MPAA haven't deterred the release of hundreds of movies chockablock with sexually explicit or violent content. And with the rise of unrated DVD versions of films, directors and producers have another outlet for getting their complete "message" out. It's the way of life for a movie expecting wide release: there are hundreds of negotiations with dozens of parties. A very, very select few films are compromise-free. I'm not going to lose sleep over missing scenes in Orgazmo.
And does it really matter whether we know the home addresses or whatnot of the MPAA's board members? Publicity isn't going to change the process. As soon as most people hear that board members must have raised/had a child, they're going to be ok with the current set-up.
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Just dump all ratings above "R"
No matter what they are called: "X", "NC-17", or the suggested "A" for "Adult" trumpted by people like Roger Ebert to remove the stigma of the first two ratings.
"But, but," you ask, "then children might see something that should be rated 'X', something no child should see!"
Maybe they will, but that will be the parent/guardian decision. Shouldn't parents have the final decision on what their minor child sees anyway?
Oh noes! Parents will actually have to put forth some effort into parenting!
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It is censorship, but so what
The MPAA is a private organization and as such has no prohibition against censoring. It says right in the article it's a private board and no one has to submit to it. Remember the first amendment only applies to the government.
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MPAA is not helpful
I don't know if it amounts to censorship, but the MPAA can be amazingly inconsistent sometimes. Of what use are the ratings when they don't really make sense?
For instance, "Whale Rider" rated PG-13 for "brief language and momentary drug reference." I'm not sure where the language occured, but the drug reference amounts to, and I counted them on DVD, essentially 50 frames, about 2 seconds, of someone hiding a bong. If you didn't know what a bong was already, you would not have known what the hiding was about. In other words, the MPAA was protecting children from something they would already know about.
A quick search of recent PG-13 movies brings up, among others last year's "War of the Worlds," a brutally intense film featuring disintegrating humans, total destruction, mob violence, the death of hundreds in a Martian attack on a ferry, children in peril of being eaten by the Martians' organically powered war machines, a literal rain of blood of already devoured humans, and a child forced to watch as a parent is nearly devoured in front of them - Not that there's anything wrong with any of that!
The point is, the MPAA board somehow looked at these two films "through the eyes of a parent" and apparently were completely unable to see any difference between them. This is insane. Sure, no one is "required" to submit their film for rating, but lots of luck getting it released in theaters without it.
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thank you
I'm just glad that Salon is regularly giving pubic hair the attention it deserves.
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Keep Your Eyes Closed
As "Chris", "Brad", and "Bill" have ably pointed out, no one is alleging that Bush-Cheney operatives are working around the clock in dark smoke-filled rooms, lit only by the output of whirring film projectors, cutting and splicing footage, and deciding what the public may and may not see. Rather, the point, as I understand it, is that the current ratings system is tantamount to censorship as a practical matter. This is why, to cite one recent example, all moviegoers in the U.S., regardless of age, were denied the freedom to choose to see the same theatrical release of 'Eyes Wide Shut' that was shown in Europe.
In any event, thanks to "Chris" especially for reminding me why I feel so little sympathy regarding the general decline in popularity of local newspapers and movie theaters. They are free to refuse to advertise or exhibit any film with which they are uncomfortable; and I, along with an ever-growing segment of the population, am free (for now) to watch DVD's.