This Film Is Not Yet Rated

Kirby Dick's expose of the MPAA's ratings process only confirms the suspicion that motion picture ratings are virtually worthless, arbitrarily assigned by an elite panel who purport to have our country's children's best interests at heart, but who seem to think that an exposed breast is more harmful to them than seeing a gunshot to the head.

It's absolutely infuriating that the country's churches have a seat on the ratings boards and a say in what content is or is not suitable for consumption. It's infuriating that an NC-17 rating exists at all (the board is essentially usurping the judgement and decision-making abilities of parents), but doubly infuriating that it's used as a punishment to "encourage" filmmakers to alter their films so that they're more palatable for mainstream film goers. For a while I was kind of sad that home video and the Internet seems to be supplanting movie theatres as the preferred venue for watching films, but now I appreciate the democratizing effect of companies like Netflix and Blockbuster, who have made great filmmakers less reliant on corporate theatre chains to get their films distributed and seen.

As a documentary, "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" is rather disorganized. Dick has good points to make, but their impact is blunted by tangents and off-topic tirades. Dick hires a private detective to track down the identities of the ratings board, and spends far too much of his 96 minutes following the details of that investigation. On the plus side, it's great to see directors and actors like Kimberly Peirce, Maria Bello and John Waters given a venue to vent their frustrations at the ratings practice.

One of the main points Dick makes, and one I heartily agree with, is that the ratings board focuses far more energy on censoring sex in films than they do violence, a point that is unintentionally driven home by none other than the ratings board chairman herself towards the film's climax. Dick asks why his documentary received an NC-17 rating and she cites the sexual content that appears in some of the clips of films that have received NC-17 ratings sprinkled throughout the documentary. She seems to have no problem with some of the very violent content included in clips from some of those very same movies. What an idiot.

Grade: B+

The film rating system in this country is governed by a secret panel created by the major film studios more than 35 years ago. Since its inception the MPAA ratings board has functioned as a sort of 'black box' where movies go in one end and a rating comes out the other, with absolutely no transparency or public accountability of the process.

The MPAA rating system is publicly proclaimed to be merely a voluntary industry system that nobody is 'required' to follow. Unfortunately the reality of the movie industry is entirely divorced from these innocuous proclamations. The rating placed on a film largely determines who gets to see it in a theater, and what sort of publicity for the movie will be accepted by television and newspapers. An NC-17 basically guarantees that only the small sliver of the public with access to art house cinemas will ever sit down in a theater to watch the film, and that there will be virtually no way to promote the film to the public.

So, in the real world, the MPAA ratings board wields considerable unchecked power over the film industry. Since the organization is funded and sustained by the major studios, that influence becomes particularly problematic when applied to independent productions. It would be not unlike a small, local merchant having to go to board set up by Wal-Mart and Target to get approval for what he can put out on his shelves.

Kirby Dick approaches this subject with humor, insight, and tenacity. He undertakes to blow the lid off of the black box of the MPAA rating system. In the process he creates a narrative filled with both information and humor. While I will leave his methods as a surprise for the viewer, suffice it say they are both unconventional and effective.

The interspersing of interviews with independent filmmakers who have been forced to do battle with the MPAA to get their movies seen, provides an excellent counterpoint to Dick's quest to expose the star chamber like proceedings of the rating board to the light of day. As well, his side-by-side comparisons of similar films, one receiving an R rating and the other an NC-17, is illustrative of the particular biases present on the ratings board.

If you care deeply about he art of film, This Film Is Not Yet Rated is a must-see. On the other hand if you just want to learn a little something and have a good laugh, this is a good pick for you too.

America is the land of the free, so in order to constrain people to do what you want them to do, you have to let them think it's their choice. How do you do that? You create a completely anonymous committee, supposedly composed of concerned parents, to rate the films that appear and, depending on that rating, they will get more or less media coverage, distribution, target audience size. You also finance this body with the money of the seven largest film studios in the US. This functioning censorship committee is called the MPAA.

The film is highly biased, to a point where it gets a little annoying, but the information contained in it is sound, proved and makes one think about the way public opinion is manipulated, ever so slightly, towards a desired average point of view. If you ever wondered how Americans can seem so ordinary, yet have completely different opinions about the same subjects as any other people, then this movie will answer part of that question. Very insightful is the presentation of the seven major film studios who own 95% of the American film industry, parts of larger conglomerates that own 90% of all mass-media. Also interesting, the role of the clergy in movie rating. Yes, I did say clergy, as in priests. In the appeals commission there are always an episcopalian priest and a catholic one. No other religions get to add their input.

A must see movie, not a conspiracy theory film, but certainly one that is against the system. The system here being the absurd movie rating system of the MPAA.

This movie is informative, but also funny and clever and kind of mind-blowing. It's not for the faint of heart because it contains quite a bit of graphic footage to illustrate the point that the ratings board is totally arbitrary (in fact, one former board member says there is absolutely no training or standards -- you come in on your first day and start to rate movies). That may seem not to matter, but it matters quite a bit to the film makers whose films are being rated and several appear in the film and make very strong arguments for why the rating their film received was unfair. There are also interviews with several other people (like a free speech lawyer) who add context to Kirby Dick's expose. This really is a must see for anyone who cares about movies and it's a lot of damn fun too.

Ever been curious about the American film rating system? Then Kirby Dick's This Film Is Not Yet Rated is perfect. It does to US censorship what Michael Moore has done to others: it makes everyone look like jackasses, mainly because that's what they really are.

The film explains pretty early on, through South Park-style animation, what kind of rating a movie can get in the USA: G, PG, PG-13, R or NC-17. The last certificate is the most unpleasant one, as a film with that classification won't get a proper distribution. And it's that particular rating that Dick wants to dissect.

This documentary is divided into three sections: the largest one sees various filmmakers (Kimberly Pierce, John Waters, Kevin Smith) revealing the problems they've experienced because of the American ratings board, the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America). The second section features the director's efforts to uncover the identities of the film raters. You see, the MPAA is supposedly composed of average American parents, doing a fair job. Then how come no one knows who these people are? As the investigation continues, we learn that one board member doesn't even have kids, while several others' offspring are already adults. So what's really going on?

The last part of This Film Is Not Yet Rated focuses on Dick's own censorship trouble, a really interesting version of the movie-within-a-movie gimmick: he sent a rough cut of the documentary to the MPAA, receiving the dreaded NC-17 (since there's some footage coming from other NC-rated films), and so we get to see his frustration as he tries to appeal the controversial decision.

The best part of the film is the first one I mentioned, mainly because we get to know the rules of the game a bit better. Apparently, any kind of "weird sex" is not welcome: oral sex (Boys Don't Cry), threesomes(The Dreamers, American Psycho), gay stuff (Mysterious Skin, Where The Truth Lies), female masturbation (Jersey Girl, a PG-13 movie, almost got an R just because Liv Tyler talks about it)... the list is quite long. Of course, you're better off if your film is endorsed by a major studio. That's why a glimpse of Maria Bello's pubic hair got independent film The Cooler an NC-17, while Sharon Stone doing much more in the audience-baiting Basic Instinct was "appropriate" enough to receive an R. No wonder most filmmakers hate the MPAA! Hell, we even find out that Trey Parker and Matt Stone deliberately put distasteful material in Team America just to make fun of the ratings board.

Another "funny" thing is, the NC-17 is only used against sex. No one ever says anything about on-screen violence. In fact, any movie can have the highest body count ever, and be rated R. If there's no blood, it might even get a PG-13. As people point out, all other countries have the exact opposite attitude, condemning violence rather than sex (I know, from personal experience, that most films rated NC-17 in the US are usually classified "15" or "16" in Europe, while excessive violence tends to lead to an "18").

As someone wisely says in this hilarious, poignant opus, ratings don't really matter. If it's a film a lot of people want to see, no rating in the world can damage it. If it's a film few people want to see, then no rating in the world will save it. That might be true (although I don't necessarily agree: the huge success of The Passion of the Christ was largely due to the rating controversies), but this movie also made me realize that I would definitely not want to be a member of the MPAA. Their criteria are too weird for normal people to understand.