Alternative Film Guide

USA Today reports that Kirby Dick’s documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated "drew cheers from an audience of 1,200 at its Sundance Film Festival premiere Wednesday for its exposé on the secret group that can mean life or death for movie earnings at the box office." The "secret group" in question is the ratings board of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which makes some of the wackiest - or just downright inane - and highly arbitrary decisions about what is and what isn’t acceptable for American children and teenagers to watch. Worse yet, with the NC-17 rating (no one under 17 allowed), the MPAA censors actually have the right to prohibit teens from watching films even if their parents would consent to it. That’s a lot of (undemocratic) power. (Ironically, NC-17 was the initial rating given to This Film Is Not Yet Rated.)

Needless to say, the censorship board of the MPAA finds graphic violence acceptable if teens are accompanied by an adult, but explicit or semi-explicit sex or nudity are major NC-17 baits - especially if it’s gay sex or male nudity as in, for instance, Pedro Almodóvar’s outstanding La Mala educación / Bad Education. "We don’t try to set standards," explains MPAA spokesperson Kori Bernards. "We just try to reflect them." In other words, the MPAA is supposed to be a reflection of America’s cultural hangups and prejudices. But the question is, whose America do those censors actually represent?

Note: Dick, whose documentary Twist of Faith was nominated for an Academy Award last year, has accused the MPAA of making pirated copies of his film. An ironic twist worthy of an unrated Hollywood movie.

More on This Film Is Not Yet Rated, the Independent Film Channel page where filmmakers are invited to share their own "MPAA horror stories."

Hollywood Foreign Press Association 2005 Golden Globe Award winners and nominees

List of the British Academy of Film 2005 nominees

 

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