This Film Is Not Yet Rated:
This Film is Not Yet Rated is a documentary that looks into the operations of America’s most popular, scratch that, only ratings board, the Motion Picture Association of America. Kirby Dick takes the viewer on a ride with himself and a private detective to find out the true identities behind the ratings board and the MPAA. Kirby Dick’s documentary style has been criticized due to its largely leftist and intrusive view on the MPAA and ratings system. But something that not only strikes up a conversation beyond Dick’s style is his topic choice. As filmmakers and filmgoers we have the right to know about the movies we see and why they have such a rating, something we don’t often think about is why or how they got that rating. The idea that ratings are fair and balanced has gone unnoticed and unseen for so long under the publics’ eye, which is why I believe Dick decided to handle the topic in such a manner.
“No one involved in This Film Is Not Yet Rated thinks intelligently.” Armond White states in “Whimpers and Whines.” White continues on with more talking about how “Dick’s methods are alarmingly unscrupulous” and how he uses “illiberal tactics to demean the ratings system.” A break down of what White is saying is that Dick is being unfair in his methods, playing more to the liberal side of the political spectrum where his actions for bringing the ratings systems flaws to light are opposite of that. It is clear that Dick is trying to achieve something here; I think it is that of an audience that is upset. The first time I watched this movie I was in an uproar about the ratings system, which led me to stop paying attention to ratings. My opinion about the ratings system has only changed slightly and with more thought and backup for my argument upon the second view. I understand where White is coming from, Dick does employ sever methods such as hiring a private investigator to look into the identity of the board members, interviews with mostly artist that have gotten a NC-17 rating and had to face the appeal board.
In documentary filming there is always going to be a bias so there should be no use for the harsh words like those of James Bowman. In the article “Crockumentaries” Bowman discusses the new type of documentary known as “The Michael Moore-inspired crockumentaries” that tend to focus on the more political and tend to be sided more to the left then the apparently right standing America according to Bowman. Bowman’s critique of Dick’s film and bias is that full of bias itself, opinions against that of Dick and the truths he is trying to show. Bowman takes scenes and interviews out of context to fit his article just as Dick does in the film to further his agenda. With this being said a reader is going to be swayed by writing just as much as they could be by a documentary, especially when both are meant to deliver factual information. This furthers the argument about bias in all media and Dick cannot be held solely responsible for an opinionated documentary. There is no such thing as a documentary without an agenda, the filming and editing of it causes it to have a bias.
In my own opinion documentaries are meant to spark discussion and further research. Dick also thinks that documentaries should spark discussion, or at least he hopes for this with his documentary, so stated in an interview with Cineaste. Because there has been so much discussion in the articles about Dick’s film I started looking at other articles that criticize the MPAA’s ratings system as well as other ways to judge or rate movies. A specific article that I have posted before that comes from Slate Magazine called “The 7 Percent Solution” is about how the ratings system and the MPAA are hurting independent pictures more so than the Studios. I read this article and it suggested a different site that uses a point system detailing what is in a film and educates parents about content. The site is called Kids-In-Mind, their mission statement says, “We make no judgments about what is good or bad or anything else… We are not affiliated with any political party, any cultural or religious group, or any ideology. The only thing we advocate is responsible, engaged parenting.” This however is not true for the MPAA. The MPAA on its site has in the lower left corner icons of all the major studios owned by the major media conglomerates in the world, and that to me is a sign of bias in favor of those paying for the company. The MPAA’s website has the same information that Dick provided in his critique about who the raters are, how they are judged, and why there is secrecy. There is something else that made me cringe when looking at the MPAA’s site, the fact that the introduction drew on extreme patriotism and American values, I guess this is how they keep people happy, by sticking up for their American Family values.
In my search for what are American Family values I came across many answers but most pointed to moral and ethical behaviors, mostly leaning toward the Christian ideologies. I have ethics, I have morals, but I do not follow the Christian faith or believe in its ideologies, aren’t I an American? I understand parents don’t want their children watching gratuitous sex scenes, I don’t want to either. Though I believe if it is being done tastefully in the respect for art not shock value, then by all means allow it. What is more educational than watching a portrayal of how sex is supposed to be, not the comedic or “immoral” ways teen comedies portray it. That is why I do not want a media conglomerate controlling my movies, my opinions, and my values, which seems to be the case. Although people are standing up creating different systems to rate movies by, let us just hope the rest of America can see before their judgment is too full of AOL Time Warner, Walt Disney, Universal’s values of a patriotic American.
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