Candice Dehnbostel- This Film is Not Yet Rated
This Film is Not Yet Rated exposes the truth of the Motion Picture Association of America’s rating system and the corruption and forced self-censorship it brings. Jack Valenti, a former Washington official and president of the MPAA, set up a system that forces filmmakers to either edit their films to conform to secret raters’ guidelines or lose profits and audiences if they don’t make the changes raters only sometimes offer. These raters’ identities are not disclosed to the public. The MPAA tells the public that the raters have children of high school age or younger and cannot be a rater for more than seven years, yet the film disproves this. The raters are supposed to the average American parents, but who is the average American parent? Further, how can an agency run by financially powerful film companies fairly review films they are trying to make money off of?
Franklin makes the point that “it is certainly true that many theaters will simply refuse to screen a movie with the rating NC-17” (153). This means that while the movie has been made, it may not reach the audience who want to see it. The film goes on to note that the difference between the ratings R and NC-17 could be millions of dollars at the box office. Some retailers won’t sell NC-17 movies either. As discussed in class, even if NC-17 films are released in theaters they normally don’t receive much advertising or TV time.
Additionally, between a “sexually subversive” film and one with gratuitous violence, the violent film is more likely to get an R rating. The sexually subversive film would end up with NC-17. Some of the filmmakers in the movie argued that the raters see sex as destroying society. Yet, John Waters argues that kids are more aware of sex than their parents think. The male and female sexual experiences are held to different standards when they are rated. Some of the filmmakers assert that female pleasure is looked down upon and thought of as deviant, while men killing and committing rape are frequently seen in mainstream films. Gay and lesbian experiences are seen as subversive even if a similar scene involving heterosexuals is judged as okay.
Cieply’s claim that Valenti’s “genius” of creating the ratings system that allowed film restriction to change depending on the public climate does not seem to be true (2007). Since the raters cannot possibly represent overall public opinion of what is and is not acceptable in film for almost a decade’s worth of time, the beliefs and morals held by around 10 people decide the viewing habits of the rest of America. The raters have no training and no expert opinions. As raters are chosen by the MPAA and only two or three companies completely control the information in films dispersed to public, how accurate could films’ ratings truly be?