Chris Dahmen's Blog 15
Kirby mentions “In the current environment, creative, thoughtful, and even subversive films can get made� because the restrictions and judgements on the films by the MPAA occur when the films are submitted to the board for review. The films can still be made any way an artist desires to make them, but the artist’s ability to make money off the film which often times means paying off debt and sometimes just breaking even is contingent on being able to successfully market the product. Being able to successfully market the product is contingent on a rating of the film for certain audiences. That is however, very restricting and ensures that only films that have certain approval can be marketed successfully. In that sense, there is no economic incentive to create films unless one knows that it is going to pander to the standard of the board’s tastes, etc. The reason why Franklin said this was to defend the ideology of the board and their mission from criticism by filmmakers who are subject to their criticism and judgment which is totally done in secret in a deliberate fashion so as to disallow filmmakers to pressure board members. Violence as the film suggests has a much better chance of getting published with an “R� rating than sex does. I wonder if this has something to do with a Christian moral ethic. Somehow they may believe that murder happens less frequently than sexual promiscuity of course with justification. Perhaps they believe that if a person commits a murder it is black and white and of great offence immediately. Society won’t tolerate that. But sexual permissiveness could spread much farther much faster in a totally legally sanctioned way. As the film suggests, a woman who was filmed with some of her pubic hair showing the film she was in was given an NC-17 rating, whereas “Basic Instinct� also showed Sharon Stone’s pubic hair and it was given a rating of “R.� Also as the film points out time and time again, much violence is shown in films with several murder scenes and they are permitted an “R� rating if there is no blood. But there was a movie about lesbian teenagers with a girl masturbating over her clothes not showing any private parts was given an NC-17 rating.