Everybody enjoys a cinematic adventure. No matter what someone’s background is, how old they are, whether they are married, single, divorced, gay, straight, bisexual, old, or young, everybody has watched a movie. “This Film is Not Yet Rated” is a documentary that exposes information that movie-goers often disregard or fail to take into consideration when deciding what movies they want to see [or what movies they will be allowed to see]. Throughout its 97 minutes of film, it touches on a vast array of topics that have to do with the MPAA; these topics include who makes up this board of moral guardians, the rating system created by the MPAA, and sex and violence on film.
One of the main mysteries documentarian Kirby Dick, as well as several of the filmmakers he interviewed, was trying to understand was exactly who was on this board making the decisions and how they were deciding what movies get what ratings. For some reason, the names of those on this board are kept from the public, so the American audience is being told what movies they can and cannot watch by a group of people they are unfamiliar with who decide what is appropriate for them. The reason behind this anonymity, according to Joan Graves who is the head of the Classification and Rating Administration for the MPAA, is to keep the raters free from outside pressure or influence.
According to Graves, the board is made up of ordinary people who are “average American parents” with children between the ages of 5 and 17. The idea behind this rating system is to regulate what is on screen and make suer it is age appropriate for the audience. What Kirby Dick discovered was that the children of the members this board are well over twenty years old and that one of the raters has no children at all! It was all discovered that there is no training class or actual guidelines to help in the decision making, so all these standards are fabricated.
Filmmaker Kimberly Pierce, who at first felt a sense of accomplishment with an NC-17 rating for her film “Boys Don’t Cry, was then disappointed at the reasoning behind it. Though the board refused to go into detail with her about the rating decision, three of the strikes against the movie were: a scene where after sex the protagonist of the film wipes cum off his face, an anal rape scene, and a shot of a female in the film having an orgasm that was “too long.” There was no mention of the scene of the gunshot to the head or other scenes of violence in the film, just those having to do with sex. So, this rating system appears to be molded around sexuality and what is acceptable for a male audience. Pierce felt it was because the sex scenes in this movie are about female pleasure that it received an NC-17 and not an R rating. Movies are created by men for a male audience, she says and then states what seems to be true, “Unfamiliarity breeds NC-17.”
Dick also makes an interesting comparison of the American Rating system to European films and reveals how strange the differences are between the perception of sexuality and violence on screen. European films are much more open about sexuality but much more restrictive about what violence is allowed. The MPAA rates movies much more differently. The MPAA gives four times as many moves NC-17 ratings for sex as it does for violence. Kevin Smith, director of “Jersey Girl”, and Darren Aronofsky, director of “Requiem For a Dream”, each gave their two cents on sex and violence on film.
In films, any forms of sexuality gets an R rating. Where as in a movie any number of people can be killed so long as there is no visible blood and the film can still get a PG-13 rating. Aronofsky feels it should be the other way around, and he has a point. He says films where there is excessive killing with visible blood and gore should be PG-13 and killing with no blood on screen should be rated R. He explains that younger audiences should be exposed to the graphic violence and its effects so they understand the severity of violence. Older audiences are more mentally mature and know that when someone gets shot there is blood. They are more able to differentiate between movies and reality. Touche.
Smith goes on to say his own rating system would have rape and assault against women as most offensive, not murder. He feels the “woman in peril” is a theme in mainstream movies that is overused and insulting, yet it is allowed by the MPAA. Studies of the rating system have revealed that they are much more lenient with violence on screen because the film industries know that violence sells, according to Dr. Theresa Webb. This is aimed especially for their targeted demographic: young adult men, who coincidentally are also the most at risk for violence in American society.
This documentary points out much of what is wrong with the MPAA. For one it has created a board which it has kept secret from the audience for whom it is making decisions. It has also created a fictitious set of regulations in order to rate movies which it claims are based on the desires of the “average American parent.” It has prioritized promoting movies of violence over sex because it sells while completely disregarding the fact that sex sells too. Pierce was right when she said that it is unfamiliarity which breeds NC-17 because the MPAA has managed to make itself the American audience’s guardian of morality.
