You Be the Judge

This Film Is Not Yet Rated unmasks the ratings tribunal.
by Wayne Melton
Rating: 3 out of 5

You might think that movie ratings don’t matter if they no longer keep you out of a movie. But don’t underestimate the benefit of being reminded which movies to be wary of. I, for one, wish there were a rating that would bar me from screenings of Rob Schneider comedies and anything with fart jokes.

According to the new documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated there’s actually worse stuff that the Motion Picture Association of America tries to keep us from seeing, like Hilary Swank having sex with Chloe Sevigny. This film is an attack on the MPAA board, but it proves an uphill battle to convince us with evidence from the cutting room floor (mostly sex scenes between celebs who, frankly, we’d rather not see naked).

Director Kirby Dick has a few undeniable points up his sleeve, however. For one thing, nobody digs the fuzz, especially when it’s an authority as arbitrary and clandestine as this. The only thing more odd than the people on the ratings board—the film reveals—is the lack of people on it. An absurd few decide how late we get to stay up, and most of them are less than remarkable. Not only are these people not required to have any background in film, but they wouldn’t look out of place behind the counter at the DMV.

Longtime MPAA President Jack Valenti argues from archival footage that his goal with the ratings board was to have the product judged by “average Americans.” But according to This Film, that’s not who’s judging. We learn that the movie raters are supposed to have young children at home themselves, but just as often they don’t. They are supposed to be in the job only a handful of years, but often stay on much longer than that. And their identities are kept entirely secret, during and after employment.

As Americans, we’re all used to aloof and mindless bureaucracy, but this system ignores even the most basic precepts of justice. A filmmaker “flunks” when he or she does not get a desired rating. The death knell is NC-17, which is worse than no rating at all since almost no one will market the film and none of the major theater or DVD chains will carry it. The board—God love ’em—doesn’t have to say what they based their decision on either. Unless the filmmaker is a hired gun for Paramount or some other major studio, he or she will just have to guess, and the only appeal (if they don’t want to make cuts based on guesses) is an opportunity to give a closing argument to a group of anonymous people (not the actual board) who usually side with the MPAA anyway. The castor oil must be swallowed.

This Film gets a little goofy at times, especially during the antics of a private investigator hired to unmask the board. But the overall argument seems like a no-brainer. In many ways, the censorship here, Dick contends, is much worse than the system of open censorship performed by the Hays-Breen office prior to the ratings board. At least you knew who you were presenting your film to, what the prejudices were and how to circumvent them. Film historians and critics often argue that films were better in this system: the subversive ones more creative and subtle.

Still, Dick and his movie aren’t asking much. If you want ratings, fine, he says, but let the process take place (in theory at any rate) like other American systems: in the open and subject to oversight. That’s not too hard, but I don’t think this movie is going to make it happen. Movies might be the worst form of protest. People have been thinking of them as thrill-ride entertainment for too long to stop, even for a couple of hours.

The MPAA ratings board is just one of many arbitrary and pretend institutions long overdue for a shake up, and This Film has an easy time proving it. But it’s hard to think of people shouting for social change as they leave the theater. Stuffed with overpriced hydrogenated oils and high-fructose corn syrup, they are more likely to holler for a TUMS. By the way, he took his film to the ratings board, and guess what he got? LAA

Rated NC-17; opens Sept. 1 in select local theaters.