This Film Is Not Yet Rated

When I was doing my BFA at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) I took an art history course called "Women in Film". In the class we watched movies made by women and critiqued movies from a woman's point of view. I was introduced to the movie "Romance" and she told us that it was only playing in a small theater in the West Village and it would never get rated in the US, therefore, it would never become a well-known movie in the United States. According to IMDB it was actually banned in the United States (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0194314/). She explained to us that American Pie is fine because it's from a male point of view, but if a female version of American Pie was ever made, it would never get funded because it would never get rated. Although there is a lot of sexual content, Romance shows the female perspective, unlike other movies which are always showing sex and sexuality from a man's point of view. We briefly learned about the rating system. We learned how ambiguous it is and that it's sexist. I put This Film is Not Yet Rated in my Netflix Queue a while ago because it reminded me of this class.

I watched this documentary about a director hiring an investigator to find out who actually rates American films and how the rating system works. They were able to find out who some of the raters were and the guy who runs the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA - http://www.mpaa.org/), Jack Valenti. Jack Valenti worked in the White House before working in the movie industry. He is connected with leaders of the few major media corporations. These leaders are a part of an appeal board, as the final say when movie makers appeal their ratings.

Ratings are a big deal in the movie industry because if you don't get rated, you can't get funding. The rating system seems to ignore levels of violence, but censors sex. I found it strange that the movie somehow appeared to advocate more sex in movies. I tried to look past that at other criticisms, such as the discrimination against movies depicting gay sex. It can be the same as straight sex scenes, but if the scenes are gay, they wont get rated.

One director commented on the making of war movies and explained that war movies need to be watched by representatives from the military to make sure that they show America in a good light. At one point the movie said that the rating system has gotten worse over the past 20 years, which would explain movies like Platoon and Casualties of War. Still, he brought up a good point. He thinks that having the media always depict the military as being benevolent ahs made the American people more pro-war and warlike. I'm not sure this is true, but it's interesting.

At some points the interviews with directors/movie makers seemed to be them trying to justify why their movies should have been made instead of critiquing the rating system. The most successful part of the critique, I think, was definitely the ambiguous connection to the six corporations that not only own all major media companies, but they are involved in the rating system.