Orgazmo vs. Boogie Nights

[SlickRoenick]

How is it that Orgazmo is NC-17 but BN is rated R? BN was much more pornographic than Orgazmo.

[silenus]

“Artistic merit.”

[SlickRoenick]

@silenus

“Artistic merit.”

I don’t get it

[silenus]

Boogie Nights had a serious story, and it was made by a “serious” director.* Orgazmo*…wasn’t.

[Hey_It_s_That_Guy]

I saw Orgazmo in a movie theater, and I could’ve sworn it was rated R. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of an NC-17 rating, but I know Parker and Stone have made enemies of the MPAA Ratings Board.

[jayjay]

@Big Bad Voodoo Lou

…but I know Parker and Stone have made enemies of the MPAA Ratings Board.

Well, they did manage to sneak that whole “Bigger, Longer and Uncut” thing past them. HOW they managed it, I don’t know, except to hypothesize that the MPAA board is majorly out of touch with modern sexual innuendo.

[Sam_Lowry]

@jayjay

Well, they did manage to sneak that whole “Bigger, Longer and Uncut” thing past them. HOW they managed it, I don’t know, except to hypothesize that the MPAA board is majorly out of touch with modern sexual innuendo.

Well, here’s a possible reason that could explain how they managed it, from the imdb.com trivia page for the movie:

It’s a widely reported myth that the original title of the film was “South Park: All Hell Breaks Loose” and the MPAA forced Trey Parker and Matt Stone to change the title, stating that all movie titles must be G-rated (despite the fact that there are many movies with the word “hell” in them - Hellraiser (1987), Hellfighters (1968), From Hell (2001), etc.). The story comes directly from Parker and Stone who claim that they submitted the film with the original title and were forced to change it. Richard Taylor, a spokesman for the MPAA, denies that any film was ever submitted with that title and that the MPAA did not reject the use of the word “hell” in the title.

[Max_Torque]

Here is an illuminating article I’ve linked to before, about the rating system and how independent filmmakers are often shafted by the MPAA because they don’t have the “pull” of big studios. Remember, Orgazmo was made before Parker and Stone had a TV series under their belts. From the article:

“The reason we got the NC-17 on Orgazmo was that it was released by October Films, which had no clout, and we didn’t have the money to re-edit the film and continue to resubmit it,” Parker told the Los Angeles Times. However, the Rating Board gave South Park, one of the most obscenity-laced pictures in recent memory, an R. “We got an R because Paramount was behind it,” said Parker, simply. “But the independent filmmaker gets screwed.”