This Film is Not Yet Rated"Documents a history of the MPAA ratings board. Talks to numerous directors and actors about the censorship of their movies before they could be released. Includes directors, Kevin Smith, Matt Stone, John Waters, Darren Aronosfsky, Maria Bello, Atom Egoyan. Director, Kirby Dick hires a lesbian family of private investigators to find out the names of the MPAA ratings board and see if the raters are actually parents of children 5-17 like the MPAA tells American parents they are."
DISCLAIMER: My 3 Star rating of this film is soley based on the artistic nature. It is my firm belief that everyone should see this film.
3.5 Stars
I don’t think this film is really going to SHOCK anyone. In this day and age, we have come to realize and (unfortunately) accept that many aspects of our day to day lives are controlled by large corporations, and the film industry is no different. But even though it may not shock you, the things revealed in this documentary will present you with some very sobering facts.
Filmmaker Kirby Dick tries to expose the hypocrisy and secrecy of the MPAA ratings board who assign the ratings to all movies released in the United States and he does a pretty good job. One major drawback for me was the private investigator he hires to try and gain access to (and later gather more information about) the MPAA. She is, in one word, amateur. Just from watching television and movies, I could have done a better job than this woman. And there is even a random, seemingly pointless conversation in the movie where she talks about how she thinks she may be a lesbian . . . huh? How does that relate to anything?
Regardless, she more or less gets the job done and is able to find the information that the filmmaker is looking for, most importantly the true identities of the MPAA raters. The MPAA goes to such lengths to keep their identities secret because, they claim, it prevents the people from being harassed or influenced (a fact that is contested later in the film). This was my only major disagreement with the filmmaker. I got over the fact that Kirby is a bit of a prick and that the film seemed to be a little more “dramaticized” than a documentary needs to be, but he hurts the wrong people with the information. The raters themselves are just parents making a whopping $30,000 per year. While I am not so glib to assume that the raters don’t know what’s going on or that they may not be getting other forms of compensation under the table, I really don’t think he needed to expose them. Screwing the people at the bottom of the totem pole doesn’t result in hurting the big guys, it just results in NEW people at the bottom of the totem pole.
One of the most interesting points in the movie, though, is the argument made about the way sex and violence are dealt with in the ratings. While we have all heard the arguments over and over about how American society is downright Puritanical when it comes to sex, it never really hit me how much disparity there is in dealing with sex versus violence. Case in point, the movie Saw can show dismemberment, castration, and many other acts of graphic violence and receive and R while a movie whose only offense is to show a woman’s vagina receives an NC-17. I could go off on a tangent here about what’s a bigger social problem today in America violence or nudity . . . but I won’t. The disparity in ratings of love scenes between homosexuals and heterosexuals is also glaringly obvious, but that’s almost worth an entirely different film.
As you would expect, the filmmaker eventually submits his documentary to the MPAA for a rating and (surprise, surprise) it comes back with an NC-17 rating. So, he goes through the appeals process to try and get an R rating. One of the most ironic moments in the film comes at the end where we find out the identities of this “appeals board”. While I shouldn’t have been surprised by who the people ended up being, I still had to shake my head in disbelief.
Now, you might ask what’s the big deal about an NC-17 rating? It’s just a guideline for parents and if the film is still good people will hear about it. Well, unfortunately that’s not the case. If you get the NC-17 no major studio is going to produce the movie or advertise for it or even really promote it. On top of that, Blockbuster, Movie Gallery, and all the other chain video stores won’t carry it. So, while you may not realize the importance of the MPAA ratings, after this film you will come to realize that they have the American filmmaker by the balls.
I don’t think this film is really going to SHOCK anyone. In this day and age, we have come to realize and (unfortunately) accept that many aspects of our day to day lives are controlled by large corporations, and the film industry is no different. But even though it may not shock you, the things revealed in this documentary will present you with some very sobering facts.
Filmmaker Kirby Dick tries to expose the hypocrisy and secrecy of the MPAA ratings board who assign the ratings to all movies released in the United States and he does a pretty good job. One major drawback for me was the private investigator he hires to try and gain access to (and later gather more information about) the MPAA. She is, in one word, amateur. Just from watching television and movies, I could have done a better job than this woman. And there is even a random, seemingly pointless conversation in the movie where she talks about how she thinks she may be a lesbian . . . huh? How does that relate to anything?
Regardless, she more or less gets the job done and is able to find the information that the filmmaker is looking for, most importantly the true identities of the MPAA raters. The MPAA goes to such lengths to keep their identities secret because, they claim, it prevents the people from being harassed or influenced (a fact that is contested later in the film). This was my only major disagreement with the filmmaker. I got over the fact that Kirby is a bit of a prick and that the film seemed to be a little more “dramaticized” than a documentary needs to be, but he hurts the wrong people with the information. The raters themselves are just parents making a whopping $30,000 per year. While I am not so glib to assume that the raters don’t know what’s going on or that they may not be getting other forms of compensation under the table, I really don’t think he needed to expose them. Screwing the people at the bottom of the totem pole doesn’t result in hurting the big guys, it just results in NEW people at the bottom of the totem pole.
One of the most interesting points in the movie, though, is the argument made about the way sex and violence are dealt with in the ratings. While we have all heard the arguments over and over about how American society is downright Puritanical when it comes to sex, it never really hit me how much disparity there is in dealing with sex versus violence. Case in point, the movie Saw can show dismemberment, castration, and many other acts of graphic violence and receive and R while a movie whose only offense is to show a woman’s vagina receives an NC-17. I could go off on a tangent here about what’s a bigger social problem today in America violence or nudity . . . but I won’t. The disparity in ratings of love scenes between homosexuals and heterosexuals is also glaringly obvious, but that’s almost worth an entirely different film.
As you would expect, the filmmaker eventually submits his documentary to the MPAA for a rating and (surprise, surprise) it comes back with an NC-17 rating. So, he goes through the appeals process to try and get an R rating. One of the most ironic moments in the film comes at the end where we find out the identities of this “appeals board”. While I shouldn’t have been surprised by who the people ended up being, I still had to shake my head in disbelief.
Now, you might ask what’s the big deal about an NC-17 rating? It’s just a guideline for parents and if the film is still good people will hear about it. Well, unfortunately that’s not the case. If you get the NC-17 no major studio is going to produce the movie or advertise for it or even really promote it. On top of that, Blockbuster, Movie Gallery, and all the other chain video stores won’t carry it. So, while you may not realize the importance of the MPAA ratings, after this film you will come to realize that they have the American filmmaker by the balls.
