Review of This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006) by Lauren M — 15 Oct 2010

I Told You It Doesn't Make Any Sense.

Humans, from what I can work out, have a pretty paradoxical view of their own lifetimes. We are more enlightened than our ancestors, but our youth is more corrupt. We have things better, but our morals are depraved. And so forth. The problem with this in practical terms is all those people trying to bring us back to the Good Old Days, which generally involves throwing some of that enlightenment away. Yes, it's better that women don't have to stay in the home, but they still ought to, for example. So it is with the strictures of the Code and the current Motion Picture Association of America. We wouldn't want to go back to the old days of the Code--that would be [i]censorship[/i]! But you know, why do all these people want to put swearing and violence and perversion in their movies? Can't we make them keep that out?

Director Kirby Dick has had his comings and goings with the MPAA; really, who in Hollywood hasn't? However, he decided with this film to take a look into the realities of the ratings system and those who create the policies. The MPAA is notoriously secretive about its raters and ratings requirements, though it asserts that all raters are parents with children between the ages of five and seventeen and that no rater serves for more than five years. Dick hires a private detective to find out if that's true or not, given that the MPAA provides no way of finding out. Her investigations are interspersed with interview footage of various filmmakers who have had their own run-ins with the ratings and clips of those movies. He looks into allegations that the MPAA is harder on independent films than studio films, sex than violence, homosexual than heterosexual.

Spoiler. It's true. Well, except for the MPAA's claims about its raters; of the ten listed at the time of the film, one has elementary-school children. One did, nine years previous when he started working for them. One never did, on account of having no children whatsoever. One, indeed, is [i]dead[/i], though I suspect that one was due to be replaced. I hope. Her contributions to discussions must have been limited. The MPAA agrees that the ratings system is primarily for the benefit of parents, and therefore the board should be made up of parents with an eye toward what they would want their children to see. Board members are supposed to serve limited terms so no one viewpoint will control the system; two of the raters are neighbours. The MPAA swears these things have been fixed, but of course the secrecy is still in place.

Dick interviews John Waters, Matt Stone, Kevin Smith, and many other lesser-known filmmakers, all of whom have tangled with the MPAA. One of their biggest problems is that, even after you have submitted the film and had it returned, you aren't told what you can cut in order to get a lower rating. It can be as little as a few seconds which created the problem, but good luck figuring out which seconds. And what you may not have known is that it costs to submit a film for rating. And if you don't get an R or lower, most theatre chains won't show your film. And most newspapers won't advertise your film's screenings at theatres which will show it. So you have to find those seconds. Though, of course, it's probably sex or swearing and very seldom violence. And the same amount of gay sex is probably a bigger issue than any hetero sex you might be showing. But you can only work that out based on comparing notes, because they won't tell you.

The MPAA claims publicly that it's just upholding community standards, and I guess it is true that the US is weird about sex and swearing and far more comfortable with violence. However, I have to say that I think part of its problem, and a big part, is that the US has this curious view that all entertainment is, or should be, family entertainment, and if it isn't, there's something wrong with it. Dame Helen Mirren speaks of being asked about what she would say to a nine-year-old sitting next to her in a screening of [i]The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover[/i]. (I'm pretty sure I encountered this story somewhere else.) She demanded to know who would be stupid enough to show a nine-year-old [i]The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover[/i]. I firmly believe [i]Watchmen[/i] should have been NC-17, and the only explanation I've got is that, well, the MPAA is kinder to studio films than independents. I also have to tell you that I strongly suspect the reason that it's as astonishing as it is is that, as these directors (particularly Stone) confirm, are back to the old, old game of conning the censors. I don't think they expected as much of it to stay in the picture as did. They filmed things to sacrifice, things which would distract, and it stayed in after all.