Review of This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006) by Philip W — 08 Sep 2008

A weak and biased documentary that manipulates its facts and ignores evidence if it doesn't work in its favor. A good documentary looks at all sides of an issue and presents its idea to the viewer to let them decide how they feel on about it. This Film Is Not Rated instead loses nearly all its credibility for making outrageous accusations against the MPAA, though it was an entertaining and sometimes very funny journey.

I did not agree with a lot of the accusations the film made, and where it could have made a solid stand on the issue of the MPAA being too hard on movies with gay themes, it instead voids all its credibility by manipulating its evidence to say what it wants to. For example, the idea that the movies Mysterious Skin and Boys Don't Cry were given the NC-17 rating entirely because of a gay sex scene is an ignorant statement. Anyone who sees this documentary and agrees with it might also want to view the movies it defends. Mysterious Skin was not given the NC-17 stamp because it features gay sex, but because it also shows a number of scenes of rape and graphic molestation children. And Boys Don't Cry doesn't get the NC-17 just because of a lesbian oral sex scene, but because there is an intense and very disturbing rape scene. In my opinion, both films are extraordinary, but I cannot defend this documentary's suggestion that they should be R-rated.

Additionally, I could not take seriously one filmmaker's opinion that movies depicting graphic violence, like Saving Private Ryan, should be PG-13 because they show the reality of gun violence, while the Bond films should be rated R because they show violence and murder with little to no consequences. And another filmmaker saying that his documentary of the Iraq war should get a PG-13 instead of an R because the graphic language the soldiers use is "real" is also ridiculous.

Yes, I do agree that the MPAA needs to regulate its ratings, and that they are too harsh on some films while more lenient to others that are brought in by major studios. But the way the evidence is presented is no more honest than the organization that it criticizes.