After watching several PG-13 DVD’s with the director’s commentary on it became apparent to me that the directors often complain about one thing. And that is that the MPAA often goes too far in telling the directors what they can or can not do. It’s almost like directors are not allowed to direct their own movies. For example, in the movie “Get over it” there is a scene where there is a bunch of high school kids and it looks like the students are drinking beer. The director had to digitally remove all the beer cans (or what looked like beer cans) or the MPAA would give them the feared “R” rating and they would lose their target audience. There is another scene in the movie where a parent asks his high school son at a party if he is having a kegger. The director was told by the MPAA that if the word “kegger” was not removed then they would give the movie a “R” rating (because they felt this was an inappropriate situation for teens in a movie). There is another scene in the movie where the word masturbation is used. If this word was not changed or removed, you guessed it, the MPAA threatened to give them a “R” rating.
So my question is this, is the MPAA going too far or do you feel they are not doing enough to protect us from harmful content?
Clearly the MPAA is off their bloody rocker. Thankfully, most directors who make serious films and care about preserving their vision in the final product ignore the teen audience. “American Beauty” can be R-rated without the director batting an eye, why would he care?
If you’re making a movie for the teenage audience, it probably isn’t the most artistic contribution to the genre of film. Probably alot of complaints are from people making these new teen movies, who would like to get away with as much as possible in the “gross-out” department while still allowing most of the high schoolers to see it at the theatre.
The more tragic MPAA interference is when they threaten to give the film the dreaded “NC-17” rating, because regulations (sponsored and enforced by what I don’t know) hinder advertising for those movies. This is part of why they messed with the orgy scene in “Eyes Wide Shut”, IIRC. I don’t care if some interest group tries to act big with some two-bit fluff movie directors, nothing is really lost there, but if they try to tell Stanley Kubrick and his type what to do they’ve clearly gone too far.
I think movie theatres ought to simply abandon the enforcement of the “R” rating entirely. They could keep the ratings for parents who are too stupid to realize from the trailers what sort of movie it’s going to be before bringing their kids. Why be bound to the actual enforcement side, why prevent kids under 17 from purchasing the tickets? Is it a law, or is it voluntary? If voluntary they should abandon that aspect of it entirely.
If the MPAA really wants to meddle, then at least they should financially compensate the directors for compliance. At any rate, NC-17 should be eliminated entirely along with the regulations that accompany it.
As for “harmful content”, I’ve never seen anything ever in a movie that I would consider “harmful” to someone watching it, I can’t even envision what sort of thing would be harmful that way.
The MPAA has always been preachy, and politically motivated. Medium Cool was originally given an X rating, that is one example that was possibly politically motivated. After JFK came out I saw an interview with Jack Vakenti denouncing Oliver Stone, I checked and that movie had to be resubmitted for an R rating. The MPAA is much harsher on gay sexuality in films than it is on straight sexuality (see But I’m a Cheerleader and ask yourself how in hell that got an R rating), and it is much harsher on sex/ nudity than it is on violence.
They also hold ambitious movies to a different standard- Santa Sangre was one of the first NC-17 films even though it was no more violent or grotesque than A Nightmare on Elm Street 5.
I strongly agree with both of these suggestions. The R rating should not be enforced (especially on teenagers) and the NC-17 rating is totally unnecessary (since it hardly differs from giving a film an X rating). Few things short of obvious porn ever need a rating above R.
The ‘NC-17’ rating was originally meant for serious films that explored adult topics that were not suitable for children. ‘X’ was for porn.
Unfortunately, the ‘NC-17’ is now the kiss of death, in large part because Blockbuster refuses to carry NC-17 films. So the studios won’t make them, and large numbers of topics are off-limits to film unless they are dealt with in trivial ways.
RexDart, FYI, there is no regulation that prohibits advertising of NC-17 films; it’s just that newspapers won’t accept advertising for them.
I strongly disagree that the NC-17 rating should be eliminated. Well, the rating itself should be done away with, since it does in fact carry exactly the same stigma that the X rating did. But there does need to be a real rating for “adults only” movies. A filmmaker should be able to make a mainstream movie that is intended for adult audiences without having the choice between an NC-17 rating and the attendant lack of advertising, or releasing the film unrated.
It isn’t that the MPAA is “too preachy,” exactly, it’s that they’re inconsistent and arbitrary. As RexDart alludes to, a lot of ratings controversy arises from filmmakers who can’t seem to decide whether they are targeting adults or teens with their movies; which is to say, they’re making “teen movies” but trying to fill them with adult situations, language, and topics. As a result, the fools at the MPAA have responded in so bumbling and arbitrary a manner as to dilute the PG, PG-13 and R ratings beyond any usefulness.
And, as grendel72 points out, depending on who makes the movie and what it’s about, the MPAA can give a different rating for films with very similar content. Darren Aronofsky has a great essay available online somewhere about his travails with the ratings board and “Requiem For A Dream.” He found it impossible to secure an R from them without comprising his movie seriously; meanwhile, Universal gets an R for “Hannibal” with no problem.
Roger Ebert makes a great argument that, to kill the MPAA and replace it with something sensible, the studios need to take it on themselves. Some major studio need to say, “From now on, we’re releasing all of our films without submitting them to the MPAA for review and rating. We’ll edit them according to our own standards, and provide content guidance/information for parents, but we will no longer carry an MPAA rating.” Can you imagine newspapers and broadcasters not accepting advertising from, say, Disney or 20th Century Fox? They’d have to give in.
Uh, Sam, NC-17 replaced X; the two ratings never coexisted in the MPAA’s scheme. In the unlikely event that a porn film were submitted to the MPAA for rating, it would receive the NC-17 rating. However, porn films are almost never submitted to the MPAA as they are not shown in theatres who have an obligation to care about MPAA ratings. (Most mainstream theatres are contractually obliged never to show a movie which has not been rated by the MPAA, but this obviously does not apply to porn theatres, who are limited only by local obscenity and pandering laws.)
There is no substantive difference between the old X and the new NC-17 rating; the original supposed intent of destigmatizing the X rating was never successful (and I doubt the MPAA seriously intended it to be).
“X” wasn’t originally for porn, it just ended up that way. It was originally intended for movies that should be seen by minors under any circumstance, much as the NC-17 rating is intended.
NC-17 officially replaced the “X” rating (which wasn’t trademarked, unlike the other ratings, and was subverted into a promotion for porn- eventually into XXX- i guess XXXX wasn’t too enticing, or we would have (at least) XXXXXXXXX by this time)
Question: How did theatres come to be contractually obligated never to show a movie before it’s having been rated by the MPAA? This can’t be a contract with the landowner or former leaseholder, why would such people care? The theatre either buys the land for the theatre or rents it, either way why would such be present in the contract?
Or perhaps the studios themselves add that requirement for MPAA compliance into the agreement for purchasing the films from the studios. Then why would studios go along with it when clearly the MPAA is an organization that hurts them, tyrannizes their directors, and limits both their prestige and profits?
I’m starting to get the feeling that the MPAA is a bunch of meddling old cronies hell bent upon ruining the film industry with their Puritan sense of responsibility for the “moral protection” of the young. (My usual way of referring to the Puritan ethic is forbade, this being GD rather than the Pit.) Could they really be so blindingly idealistic or do they have a hidden practical agenda?
RexDart: Generally, the “must have a rating” requirement is a consequence of the contracts they have with the distributor they get the films themselves from.
As to why the theatres and the studios accede to the MPAA, I don’t know. Possibly because they believe (rightly or wrongly) that the public will be afraid to watch films without ratings. Or they’re afraid that without the “voluntary” MPAA the Government will try again (as they did in the 50s and 60s) to introduce mandatory content rating systems (even though there are just volumes and volumes of caselaw as to the unconstitutionality of systems). It’s also possible that the MPAA has enough clout to ruin any studio who refuses to join it and thereby “voluntarily” submit itself to it rating system. The MPAA is, after all, a membership organization consisting of motion picture producers. Members quite probably consent, as a term of membership, to having their films rated prior to release.
I see Ebert make this argument all the time, but I’ve never understood it. This is exactly the kind of reasoning that led to the creation of NC-17 to replace X. So what leads you to believe the new rating wouldn’t end up just like NC-17 has?
The last successful rating introduced was PG-13. Maybe there should be a new PG-17 to take some of the lighter R-rated movies, and the lighter NC-17 movies could be given an R rating. Everybody knows R is “acceptable”, so people won’t be afraid of it like they would a new adult rating.
But this presumes the MPAA is sane, which of course they are not.
That is actually a very good idea. The main problem with NC-17 movies is that many theaters will not show them and many people will not allow advertisements for them in their publications. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the NC-17 rating. Its flaw is that is has not been accepted. Since R is already accepted, it would probably not carry the current stigma of NC-17 if your suggestion were to go in effect. This is especially true if some of the movies that are currently getting R-ratings would still be getting R-ratings. However, if PG-17 becomes exactly what R is now, and R becomes exactly what NC-17 is now then many people would just treat R as if it were NC-17. But if some of their favorite movies would still be considered R under the new rating system, the new R rating would probably be welcomed by most.
This actually did become a problem back in 1990 when the NC-17 rating was established. Several porn films were submitted to the MPAA, which further pushed the idea in many minds that NC-17 = porn. (I think it was mostly a publicity stunt.)
The thing about the MPAA is that it’s a necessary evil. If we disposed of movie ratings, how long before the moral watchdogs descent upon Hollywood to force yet another system upon the industry? Even with the rating system, Hollywood is a popular whipping boy among politicians, especially near election time.
That being said, the MPAA does make some rather ridiculous choices, sometimes amounting to blatant censorship. For instance, the film L.I.E. featured no sex, very little violence, and language well within “R” boundaries, yet received an NC-17 rating because the lead character is a pedophile. And Planes, Trains & Automobiles was slapped with an R rating merely for one scene where Steve Martin says “fuck” 30 times in a row.
Does anyone have any ideas for a better rating system? I would think that if we killed the current system, then movie reviewers would make up their own, and people could simply use those.
My ideal rating system would have separate categories for sex, violence, language, and “adult subject matter”. There would be no overall summary rating; the judgment of whether sex is worse than violence would be made by parents, not by MPAA suits in a back room.
Mr2001 points out more or less the point they were making in South Park the movie. In a movie more or less mocking the MPAA at every turn, and generally disapproving of its mere existence, they sort of hint that these moral watchdogs have their priorities confused. So why not just have a system that says “Look, there’s alot of ‘bad’ language in this movie, but no deplorable violence, so if you as a parent don’t really care about your kids hearing naughty words, then go ahead and bring them along.” To take the example mentioned a couple posts above, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is a movie we watched in my family every holiday season, and my parents certainly didn’t care about the use of the word fu*k, even though my younger brothers were of an age that some parents would absolutely forbid from watching any movie with even a speck of foul language.
Really, I’ve never understood the attitude that there are some movies children shouldn’t see because of content. I can understand that movie with more adult themes might bore children, and those children probably wouldn’t enjoy those films. What I don’t understand is how watching a film with “adult subject matter” could actually harm anyone. Heck, I watched plenty of movies with foul language and I still throw asterisks into the F-word when I type it on this board, even in the Pit.
That’s a good idea. A movie’s rating could look something like this:
S3 V7 L6 A1
where S = sex, V = violence, L = language, and A = adult subjects, and the number is a rating from 0 to 10, 0 being nonexistent and 10 being extremely graphic. I would even go as far as to add a fifth category for nudity (separate from sex).
This would give moviegoers much more power to determine appropriate material for children, and it would also resist convenient categories like “NC-17” that can be spurned by advertisers.
The only problem I can see is that it would make it difficult for theaters to restrict access to minors, but perhaps this should be the job of parents.
Few porn films have been submitted for an MPAA rating since NC-17 was introduced.
I do not agree with pldennison’s statement that “the rating itself should be done away with, since it does in fact carry exactly the same stigma that the X rating did.”
Just looked over a list of all the NC-17 rated films since the MPAA introduced the rating. In the last four years, none of the films that received an NC-17 rating was porn.
