Film Is Not Yet Rated

¶ … Film Is Not Yet Rated

An Uncensored Review: "This Film is Not Yet Rated"

Film ratings have been present on the top of marquees for so long, movie-goers are likely to take them for granted and assume they 'have' to be there. However, the 2005 documentary directed by Kirby Dick entitled "This Film is Not Yet Rated" questions the ubiquity of the modern film rating system. Even Dick's documentary was not so engaging and entertaining, it would still be a 'must see documentary' for that reason alone. It demonstrates the subjective nature of film rating. Film ratings have become part of the cultural landscape but they are, at heart, arbitrary, subjective, and contextual. The variety of standards that have existed to rate a film's relative appropriateness or lack thereof have varied widely since the beginning of filmmaking, and the film takes the viewer from the beginnings of cinema, to the Hays decency standards of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, up to today.

The film asks: what makes a film potentially indecent, and essentially answers that it is in the 'mind of the beholder.' (One famous Supreme Court decision about obscenity even caused a Justice to remark that he couldn't define obscenity, but he 'knew it when he saw it'). The presence of nudity and sexually explicit scenes might seem like the obvious answer as to what constitutes indecency. But if that is the case, why is ordinary nudity considered 'for adults only' while violence is considered 'okay,' or at very least only PG-13? And why do standards of obscenity vary so much, country by country, even state by state in the nation? Obscenity is a personal issue, and touches upon many highly subjective concepts like when children should be exposed to sex.

The first film rating system was created by movie studios. Instead of being pressured by government regulation, the studios hoped that by regulating themselves, they could avoid such scrutiny. They hired former U.S. Postmaster Will Hays to set decency standards. This highlights the lack of qualifications needed for anyone to decide what is obscene. There is no real pre-set formula. The Hays Commission reviewed Hollywood scripts and determined whether they satisfied the dictates of what became the dreaded Hays Code, which could be quite restrictive -- for example, the code might not permit two married people to be in a bedroom together, if their feet were not on the floor. The cultural changes of the 1960s caused the Hayes Code to be abandoned, but it did not mark the end of movie censorship. It was replaced by the Motion Picture Association of America, which many argue is little better. The MPAA was run by Jack Valenti, a former staff member in Lyndon B. Johnson's White House.

Of course, one obvious query might be: why are movie ratings such a bad thing? Can't people exercise discretion, and if they feel a film is appropriate for their child, can't they take that child to see the film, rating systems be damned? The problem is that films with NC-17 (no child under seventeen) ratings are often tarred as 'adult' films in a negative fashion, driving away people who feel that the film must be highly sexualized and offensive, like a 'raunchy' and gratuitously sexual pornographic film. The NC-17 rating, of course, is a compromise to avoid serious films being given the 'X' rating associated with pornography possessing no artistic value. But having any rating system at all means that filmmakers who want their films to reach a wide audience, and need a wide audience to pay back their backers may feel pressured to compromise their artistic integrity for the sake of getting a more desirable rating, because R-rated films can draw in more movie goers.

The subjective nature of film ratings even under the MPAA is evident when one considers that certain things we take for granted, like nudity, for example, were originally prohibited by the Hayes Commission. Foreign films from nations with different sexual standards, documentaries about important subjects, and other films that contain taboo topics can be effectively censored by being given a NC-17 rating, while violent, major Hollywood blockbusters with little artistic pretentions receive more desirably R-ratings, simply because they do not contain certain hot-button scenes and issues.

Two filmmaking techniques are used to convey the ideological point-of-view of "This Film is Not Yet Rated." One is the common format of many film documentaries, involving interviews with filmmakers and directors and clips from banned and formerly banned films. However, there is also an intriguing 'whodunit' plot. The reviewers used to determine the ratings of the MPAA are supposedly ordinary, anonymous people 'like you and me.' They are supposed to represent America, so their occupations and profiles comprise a variety of perspectives. However, these individuals who wield such influence are unknown. They should be known, according to the film's director, and so he goes on a fact-finding mission. To find out who serves on the ratings board and what criteria by the MPAA is used the director hired and filmed private detectives to track the employees who rated a variety of popular films.