This Blog is Not Yet Rated

For my summary of the film, I’m going to quote myself from my first blog post, because I felt that my summary was pretty accurate. “Salt of the Earth is a fictional film based on the true story of a zinc miner strike in New Mexico. The miners are fighting for better working conditions and racial equality, and when their wives join in the strike they add better living conditions to their list of demands. Ultimately the film becomes a story of the struggle for gender equality as well; the women want to join the in strike, but the men are adamant that the wives stay out of it.” In the end, the men and women discover that the best way to gain a better life for everyone is to join and stand together against the forces oppressing them.

After viewing the film, what stood out the most for me was how hypocritical the men were. They were so determined to put an end to the oppression against themselves, but they never even realized that they were oppressing the women in the exact same way until the women finally stood up and said something. In my opinion, and in my experience, the problem with “equality” is that no matter how far society comes in terms of making everyone equal, there will always, always be people in the world who are sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. I constantly come across people (men) who make comments like, “Oh, that’s a woman’s job” when referring to something like cooking, cleaning, or sewing, or they make jokes about the kitchen being “the woman’s place.” There are still work places that pay women less than men, and men that won’t hire a fantastic employee because she’s a woman. I work at a pizza place back home, and my boss won’t let any of the female employees work as delivery drivers; “our job” is to look pretty for the customers. So the issues of racial and sexual discrimination depicted in the film are definitely still relevant, if on a much smaller scale than they were back then.

I did notice that there are parallels between the content of the film and the story of “the making of.” In the film, the miners stand up for what they believe in, going against a figurative giant (the owners of the mine). They get beaten down again and again but they persevere, and they eventually come out on top. This is very similar to the filmmakers’ story; the blacklisted filmmakers go up against the giant that is Hollywood, as well as the government and much of America who viewed them as Communists. They fight for something they believe in, something they are passionate about, and though they continually get beaten down, they keep pushing forward and eventually the film becomes a success, even if it was years later.


In the reading for This Film is Not Yet Rated, there are several different opinions about the film. Some people despise the film and the way Kirby Dick went about making it. They claim that he invaded the privacy of the MPAA. Armond White says that “no one involved with This Film is Not Yet Rated thinks intelligently” and that the film requires viewers who don’t think intelligently. Kirby Dick was curious about all of the secrecy surrounding the MPAA Rating Board members, so he hired a private investigator to find out who the people on the board were. Sexual content is one of the main concerns of the rating board; the more sexual content, the higher the rating. Some filmmakers claim that the reason for this is that the industry is male-dominated and the men are not comfortable with female sexuality. The filmmakers say that raters pay more attention to what parts of the body are visible than to the “intellectual and thematic content of scenes involving sexuality.”

The problem with a higher rating is that it limits distribution. Hardly any theaters will show an NC-17 film (Blue Valentine is a good recent example), and big chain stores such as Blockbuster and Wal-Mart refuse to carry NC-17 films, or even explicit music. Once upon a time, I went into my local Wal-Mart looking for a CD, but the only one they had was the censored version. I approached an employee and asked if they had the non-censored version. He gave me a disgusted look like I was some kind of vermin and said, “This is a family-oriented store.” These limitations created a problem for This Film when it was given an NC-17 rating for including a clip of an NC-17 film.

The most surprising thing I discovered (though I suppose when you think about it, it’s not really all that surprising) was that the Rating Board was made up of people who don’t know anything about filmmaking. I guess that makes sense, because the audience majority will not know anything about filmmaking either, but this still bothers me. How can a group of people who know nothing about filmmaking judge how films should be rated? And why are they so concerned with sexuality above everything else?

Answer: Because out of almost everything else in the world, people are the most uncomfortable dealing with sex. There has always been a stigma attached to sex; even when sex is brought into the public eye through news stories, the stories are always about sex scandals. So even though the story is usually “so-and-so had an affair with someone other than his/her significant other,” the message that people are receiving is SEX = BAD. However, I really think that since we already know that drugs, violence, and foul language are bad, we don’t care as much. We’re a desensitized society. Drugs and violence are literally everywhere, and they’re in the news every single day. And profanity is such a normal part of everyday conversations now that no one thinks twice when they hear someone swear. So drugs, violence, and language are more easily glanced over by the Rating Board because those things aren’t big deals.

So I guess the biggest question here is this: Is censorship necessary?

My answer: Big picture, yes. Absolutely. I have two little brothers, and there have been times when I’ve said, “No, you are absolutely NOT watching that, it’s not appropriate for you.” But that’s different; they’re kids. Adults have a choice, and can make their own (usually) intelligent decisions. I do agree with some censorship on television, or on the radio, because you don’t always have a choice; you could be flipping through channels and accidentally come across something you didn’t want to see. But I don’t think that films should be discriminated against because of their ratings. If people want to see the movie, they’ll see the movie; if they don’t want to see it, they won’t. It doesn’t matter what the rating is; if I don’t want to see a movie, if I don’t think it looks interesting, I won’t go see it, regardless of if it’s rated G or NC-17. There should be a rating system so that people will have an idea of what the content of the film is, but that should be the ONLY reason for the rating system in my opinion. People who complain to me about the content of a movie get one answer from me: If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.

"I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough, it'll make sense." -Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451



**New Terminology**

Proscriptions: [proscribe] forbid, especially by law

Subversive: seeking or intending to undermine the power and authority of an established system or institution

Perjuring: willfully telling an untruth when giving evidence to a court

Kafkaesque: of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or resembling the literary work of Franz Kafka; marked by senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity

Felicitous: well chosen or suited to the circumstances; pleasing and fortunate

Prurient: having or encouraging an excessive interest in sexual matters

Jape: a practical joke

Jejuneness: [jejune] naïve, simplistic, and superficial; (of ideas or writings) dry and uninteresting