This Film Is Not Yet Rated - response by Marc Dunham
I was very impressed, surprised, and enlightened by the film this week. I was unaware of how the ratings board/system worked, and the film revealed it in a light that made it seem very biased, elitist, arbitrary, and monopolistic.
Franklin outlines the debate about what type of censorship should be occurring, primarily arguing between market censorship, industry censorship, and government censorship. The film mostly argues that any form of censorship other than the current method of industry censorship would be best. I agree with the filmmakers that the current system allows for very strict, unfair, and collusive results, providing the industry with a completely monopolistic system to output only what they want. The secrecy of the ratings board only stands to further complicate the issue, since nobody can even be sure that the raters aren’t the filmmakers themselves.
Franklin also claims that “at least in the current environment, creative, thoughtful, and even subversive films can get made” (147). I think it is widely understood among filmmakers and anyone who is familiar with the system that violence is easily used as a subversive tactic in films. Many complain that sexual themes are treated so harshly while violence is widely accepted and often glorified. One filmmaker offered an opinion which I found very interesting; that violence should be treated oppositely of how it is now, so that realistic violence which presents consequences should be given a more lenient approach, whereas bloodless killing and other fantasized forms of violence should be treated more harshly. The MPAA’s treatment of sexual themes is apparent in the rating of This Film Is Not Yet Rated as there are scenes of sexual activity, but no violence, in the film, and the documentary earned the harshest rating of NC-17.