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MPAA Gives Film About Ratings an NC-17 Rating
jtcm writes "An original documentary by Kirby Dick, called "This Film is Not Yet Rated" has been assigned an NC-17 rating by the MPAA. The film explores the MPAA's own film rating system and "its profound effect on American culture." The NC-17 rating was given due to "some graphic sexual content" and will likely limit the movie's distribution, as many theater chains will not show NC-17 movies. Among the filmmakers speaking openly in the movie are two of my personal favorites, Kevin Smith and Matt Stone. For those who are eager to view this exposé, fear not. The Independent Film Channel (IFC) will present the film uncensored and uninterrupted."
The MPAA doesn't want many people to see the BS they do. I'm shocked, totally shocked.
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The NC-17 rating was given due to "some graphic sexual content"
That's what NC-17 is for.
NEWSFLASH! Producers of anti-MPAA film include racy content with intention to pull an NC-17 rating that causes typical Slashdot readers who never read articles and jump to conclusions to conclude that the MPAA is rating such film inappropriately because of the target of said film and not the adult content. More at 11!
Easy. When the new NC-17 rating came out in 1990; the religious nutters like Jerry Falwell put pressure on all the major chains to refuse to show NC-17. So of course they got their way and now it's virtually impossible to show NC-17 movies. It wouldn't be hard to keep children out of NC-17 movies, any movie theater could do it, so it's mostly the right wing attacking that which they can't understand and don't like.
Choosing a better performing product over a lesser one is good business.
;)
But a blanket policy against NC-17 movies is different. They do that "for the children". You don't hate children, do you?
Its a lame CYA policy. If they don't show the movies, they won't get complaints and boycotts and other crap. If they proactivelty say they won't show NC-17 movies, that keeps all the radical religious freaks out of their hair.
You know... Kind of like how all those IMAX theaters decided not to show that movie about the ocean since it had the word "evolution" in it.
blog
It might have been on digg, but was there actually any discussion of the matter?
I'd rather be a little behind the times in news, if I can get some meaningful comments beyond: "LOLL, the MPAA is so gay!!"
It's an independently released documentary. For fuck's sake, that pretty much limits its distribution to places that would show it irrespective of its rating already. Hell, the new rating may open its distribution circle to the kinds of theatres Pee-Wee Herman frequents.
One might ask the same about birds. What ARE birds? We just don't know.
What motivates theatres to have a "No NC-17" blanket policy?
Because it's like the old XXX rating. Automatically the NC-17 rating is associated with hardcore porn. Hardcore porn is a big turn off to parents paying for their 15 year old going to the theater. This is a bad business move regardless if the movie is rated NC-17 or unrated due to gore, violence, etc etc...
I recall when NC-17 was being put in place that there was a move to have better definitions of "offensive" content to help the horror industry make films that were a bit more graphic without having them associated with pornography. As we all know, this never happened.
it seems naive to just ban all NC-17 movies blindly. I've never looked up who owns the big chains of theatres, but is it a religiously charged, mid-west family like the Waltons (Walmart)?
Not to be a troll or a flame but you are the naive one here; This has NOTHING to do with religion. It has to do with the profitability of the theater in the face of a fairly common social morality. Sure I can imagine a few bible beaters showing up to protest this at my local theater in a community that has tens of thousands of members but if anything this would help the theater get people interested in this film.
Instead this has to do with "parental concern" not much unlike the advisory warnings on CDs and Tapes (a movement led by a "liberal", I will remind you).
Do you really think a theater owner should show this film knowing that the community isn't going to support this type of film? That's probably your most naive sentiment; theaters and the movies they show are not about art, they're about profit. If you want art for the sake of art on the big screen you're not going to find it at the 18 screen megaplex. Not because it might upset a very small number of religious people, but because it's bad business.
And what if you found out the theater owner was an atheist? how would that effect your unfortunate stereotype of the "religiously charged, mid-west family"? What would you look to next as a crutch for a really lame assumption? There is morality outside of religion. Most of the more "leftist" types I see on slashdot always thinks that moral standards in the community on any level is automatically associated with a religious group. This is absolutely false. Even without religion society will find a common morality and there will still be "oppression" in the name of the public good or in the greatest cry of politicians and prudes everywhere; "What about the children?". Social morality, while it may have been at one point based on religion (as all the major world religions have a few points in common concerning morality) today this morality is based on a sense of purpose and right not based on a religious doctrine but rather an "natural" sense of right and wrong.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Most of the more "leftist" types I see on slashdot always thinks that moral standards in the community on any level is automatically associated with a religious group.
Funny, it's usually the right-wingers who insist you can't have morality without religion.
I think the leftist assumption is not that community moral standards arise from religion, but that stupid, allegedly "moral" standards which have nothing to do with actual right or wrong tend to arise from religion -- and in the US, at least, that assumption is usually correct. Believers and unbelievers alike agree that, e.g., murder, rape, and robbery are wrong, because those cause obvious and direct harm to other people. But it's almost universally believers who try to prevent other people from doing things that don't affect the believers' lives in the slightest.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
> Funny, it's usually the right-wingers who insist you can't have morality without religion.
I've never seen proof of this.
[shrug] I don't know if it's ever been "proved," in the sense of a large-scale study of the correlation between right-wing political beliefs and the belief in religion as the source of morality; I do know that I've seen many, many right-wingers argue this position, and rarely (though not never) seen left-wingers do the same. Actually, that's a study I'd like to see.
> stupid, allegedly "moral" standards which have nothing to do with actual right or wrong tend to arise from religion
Such as?
Such as the idea that there's some inherent danger in mainstream movie theaters showing NC-17 movies.
Also such as: gay people getting married is a threat to straight people's marriages, students should learn creationism in science class, it's an appropriate use of the FBI's time to invesitgate "obscene" material on the internet, et bloody cetera.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Well first of all teenagers are the most desirable demographic for the us theatres. Second of all most theatres are architectually designed to allow everyone inside and let them roam (so that they buy a lot of popcorn, drinks, etc). If they have to screen an NC-17 movie they will have to separate off a specific theatre, and check ids there, which will screw up their whole business model, and cost them more money and prevent them from getting the popcorn revenues (which is where their profits come from).
... for them even many R movies are porn. And they are not very smart so they are completely imune to any artistic effect a movie may have.
... which are mostly foreign art films.
If they architecturally design their theatre to have an "over 18" area, then the place will be automatically labeled a porn theatre and nobody will want to bring a date, or their kids there.
Also, america is full of conservative groups that believe every other movie to be directed by satan in order to corrupt our youth. These groups have a lot of power in local politics in most medioum to small cities, so they can easily screw over any theatre that they deem to be pornographic. And for them NC-17 means porn
So the effect is that there onle a few theatres in the biggest cities of america which show nc-17 movies
You're the one articulating a conspiracy theory that presumes the film producers engineered all this controversy in the first place. Personally, I think you're probably right about this, but it's a little rude to tell other people to put their tin foil away when your answer is a conspiracy theory that's even more convoluted.