I finally saw the movie “A Clockwork Orange”, about 10 years ago. The movie is of interest to me, because I am a firm believer in rehabilitation. (But the movie is a little inaccurate in that regard, I think. They tried to give him an aversion to sex too. Would they really include that, in the rehabilitation of a violent offender I mean? I digress.)
Anyways, I was surprised to find, the movie carried an “X” rating (today, we would rate in NC-17, of course).
Why?
I didn’t think the movie was that explicit, especially by today’s standards. There was a lot of bare female breasts, to be sure. Oh, and at one point in the movie, there was full-frontal male nudity. But it was brief, and the view was only from the side, I recall. Why “X”?
Right, the original ‘X’ was ***not ***circumscribed to explicit sexual content but intended to convey adult-only unsuitable-for-minors level as a whole work be it from sex or violence or subject matter.
It became associated with porn because the MPAA let the X-rating be public domain rather than trademark, so as to allow producers who’d rather not submit a film for prior review do so if they would self-rate as ‘X’ ; so when the first “legit porn” films came out they reached for that in order to cover themselves with the theaters.
I believe that “X” wasn’t originally supposed to be The Kiss of Death, not intended to mean “unbridled sex”.
It took its cue from the British system, which had “X certificate” since 1951 as the most restrictive of a three-tier system. The tier below, “A”, was equivalent to the current “R” – kids under 16 could come in, but only with an adult. “X” certificate kept them out altogether
But what they were kept out of weren’t at all the sort of films we associate with “X” I saw a picture of a British advertisement for the Ray Harryhausen film the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms carrying an “X” marking. This is a film I grew up watching on TV dozen years later. And not a dollop of sex or nudity in the whole thing. No blood except rhedosaurus blood.
I’m sure plenty of other 1950s “X” features were similarly untitillating.
When they introduced the ratings, they tried to make sure the public knew what “X” was supposed to mean. So Clockwork Orange got the “X” for violence and rape. Midnight Cowboy also got an “X” rating. (And the Catholic film rating service has been bragging for decades that it passed an “X” rated film by allowing that one to be seen, even though the claim is pretty spurious, given the circumstances)
But it didn’t really work out. People caught on pretty quickly that vast majority of “X” films were straight-out sexploitation and porn like Trader Hornee, and so the “X” rating DID become the Kiss of Death. Sex films played to this by claiming to be rated “XXX”, and more serious films accepted cuts to have the rating reduced to “R”. It probably didn’t help when Bon Guccione made Caligula with the ostensibly artistic choices of a screenplay by Gore Vidal 9who quickly disavowed participation), and starring Malcolm Macdowell, Peter O’Toole, and John Gielgud, only to have what wasn’t a quasi-Fellini imitation being outright porn. Caligula ultimately went out “unrated”, rather than accept the “X”.
Years later they tried to recapture the intent of the old “X” by introducing a new rating, “NC-17” (No Children under 17), but that really didn’t work out as planned. People didn’t plan on going out for an evening of sophisticated grown-up entertainment by seeking an NC-17 movie rather than something else.
What really killed the NC-17 rating was vendors like Blockbuster and Wal-Mart refusing to stock NC-17 rated films. It also didn’t help that some pornography studios announced they would be submitting their movies to the MPAA to obtain a “legit” NC-17 rating for their XXX films.
The X for A Clockwork Orange was basically due to one scene, the one where Alex and the two women have sex to the William Tell Overture. Kubrick did some edits to the scene to get the X rating removed.
When the X rating system came out, as previously mentioned, it didn’t necessarily mean “sex.” It simply meant “stuff the children cannot be allowed to see at all costs.” Midnight Cowboy, IIRC, remains the only X-rated film ever to get an Academy Award.
Regrettably, around that same time, porn became a mainstream thing, followed by “porn chic,” and porn vendors began touting their stuff as “X rated,” all the way to “TRIPLE XXX!” and the rating became synonymous with porn.
This, I suspect, is one of the reasons behind the failure of the NC-17 rating system. What we need is a PORN rating, and one for everything else we don’t want the kids to see, really.
And even then, it’ll change. I’m still boggling over the fact that Creature From The Black Lagoon is now rated G.
Remember, at that point they were still defining the ratings. The MPAA saw the scene and decided the threesome was too much for an R, possibly because that was just too kinky for them.
But the X rating at the time didn’t mean pornographic. The idea was to have the equivalent of the NC-17, where adult non-pornographic themes could be shown.
The MPAA trademarked all the ratings except the X (which is the only rating in a circle, not a rectangle). Anyone can give their film an X rating,* and the porn producers took advantage. Gresham’s law took over, and porn movies drove out good.
Midnight Cowboy was another mainstream film to get an X rating. There supposedly were cuts in the rerelease, but I also think the MPAA changed their definition and started giving the R to films that had the same elements that would get them an X a few years earlier.
*I assume the thinking was that if someone didn’t want to be rated, they could still release it. The X was partly to designate films that MPAA had not reviewed, and it makes some sense, as a way to keep from having the rating system under legal attack (“You can still release your movie; you just can’t give it anything but an X.”)
Wasn’t that the whole idea of NC-17? To leave “X” to the porn producers, and introduce a new rating that meant “Absolutely not for children, but still having artistic merit.”
But it didn’t work, because people still equated the two. I seem to recall cranky pundits at the time NC-17 was introduced, saying that it was just a nefarious way to sneak PORN past unsuspecting parents.
Hollywood’s been stymied more than once due to its desire to tell these different kinds of stories:
Porn.
Other kinds of stories, but with sex and violence in them.
Stories without much or any sex or violence, but with subject material totally inappropriate for children… or at least the sort of thing that will get you picketed by parent groups.
They’ve tried to differentiate themselves from porn and/or exploitation material, but various social or business groups (the PTA, Blockbuster Video, etc.) have in the past insisted that it’s all a ruse to fool people into paying for material they didn’t wish to view.
In their defense, that’s sometimes true. Mondo Cane, for example, is pure exploitation, but it insists it’s a documentary. The Brown Bunny contained material many would call “hardcore pornography,” albeit not to the extent and amount that a porn film would.
…and it’s guys like those who spoil it for the rest of us.
Then again, it’s a different world. One of the reasons a film used to want to avoid an X rating was that many newspapers would not carry advertising for X films; this was an issue with the original Dawn Of The Dead, which would have gotten an X, (despite an abject lack of sex or nudity; it was totally for graphic violence) which is why it was never submitted to the MPAA for a rating. It got by on word of mouth and reputation; it came out in '78, but I didn’t see it until '82, by which time the Italians had turned it into a whole genre.
Now, though, how many of us pick up a newspaper to look at the movie listings? Most of us do it online now. How relevant IS the rating system, these days?
Although I still think they need a special P rating. For porn. That’s it, just porn. Hardcore sex. And let the movies that seem to need to include that … well, stand on their own merits.
Pretty much. Before NC-17, X had become the kiss of death for any sort of “mainstream” movie – many theaters refused to run X-rated films, and many newspapers refused to run ads for them. So, the MPAA came up with NC-17, in an attempt to overcome those objections / hurdles, and the industry ran into the same sort of issues with NC-17.
The Killing of Sister George was another movie infamously stuck with an X rating. It had some very tame lesbian stuff. That was all. Just a couple kisses and a touch.
Killed the movie at the box office in the US. Later re-rated R. Shown on cable channels like TCM, no problem.
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is another one that got an X originally. I have no idea why it still carries an NC-17. Tamer than Clockwork Orange in the sex department.
Note that while the MPAA does have written standards, it does not necessarily hold to them real closely, nor does it announce changes in them.
I believe it was Roger Corman… or maybe Frank Henenlotter… that in an interview, revealed that the way it works is that you submit the movie and give the MPAA a buttload of money. A while later, they give you a rating.
They will not necessarily explain WHY they gave you the rating, but will sometimes tell you precisely what was objectionable, and sometimes not.
On one occasion, I hear they said, “cut three seconds right here, and we’ll drop you to an R.”
On another occasion, they kept taking the movie back, making cuts, and being told, “Nope, still an X, try again. And drop another buttload of money in the slot when you come back, each time.”
This was an interview with a filmmaker, though, so I can’t attest as to the accuracy. But it wouldn’t surprise me.
