I saw This Film is Not Yet Rated and this is true.
When a woman is shown on film enjoying sex, it’s more likely to get an NC-17 rating (which is basically the death knell for a movie’s success because a majority of cinemas won’t show NC-17 films and it’s harder to advertise them). Rape gets by so easily. There’s a GREAT quote by Kevin Smith:
If I were to create a rating system, I wouldn’t even put murder right at the top of the chief offenses. I would put rape right at the top, and assault against women. Because it’s so insanely overused and insulting how much it’s overused in movies as a plot device, a woman in peril. That, to me, is offensive, yet that shit skates. “
And he’s right about that. The movie Monster with Charlize Theron was one of the most disturbing films I’ve ever seen (TW: Rape). She’s raped several times in the film, once with a foreign object during an extremely graphic, violent scene and I saw that movie with my MOM in the theatre. It was so violent that my mom asked if I wanted to leave because I was so horrified.
That movie is rated R and it should have been rated NC-17 but it wasn’t because the majority of the “sex scenes” in the film are rape scenes or scenes where she is doing sex work and clearly not enjoying it.
And Ryan Gosling had a great quote about the NC-17 rating Blue Valentine got before the rating was challenged that hits the nail right on the head:
“There’s plenty of oral sex scenes in a lot of movies, where it’s a man receiving it from a woman — and they’re R-rated. Ours is reversed and somehow it’s perceived as pornographic. Black Swan has an oral scene between two women and that’s an R rating, but ours is between a husband and his wife and that’s NC-17?”
“You start to think, ‘How is it possible that these movies that torture women in a sexual context can have an R rating but a husband and wife making love is inappropriate.
Love,
Rabble
Rebloggable was requested.
Also, if you get a chance to watch This Film is not yet Rated, do it. It’s an eye opening film and the members they reveal who make up the MPAA is fucking absurd based on the guidelines the MPAA claims to apply to its members.
Someone needs to do research - The MPAA’s board member’s change a good number of times. So do their rules. There used to be a point in time when saying Fuck was automatically an R rating.
You should watch that movie. The members of the MPAA are kept a secret from the public. This movie discovers who they are and lo and behold almost none of them meet the selection requirements that the MPAA outlines for its panels.
I think one guy had been a member for 17 years and almost everyone who was supposed to have children under the age of twelve actually had all of their children grown up (well beyond the 12 year claim). Only one dude had children in that age bracket.
And did you know that priests and other religious affiliated figures of authority not only get a say in the film ratings but also have a significant impact on whether a rating will be appealed? They get to sit in on appeals and directors of films aren’t allowed to even reference other movies to justify why their film should have a lower rating.
Seriously watch the film. Almost no one that was serving on the MPAA panels actually met the requirements or had a time limit applied to them.
It’s on Netflix Instant.
Love,
Rabble
