In the first few weeks of January my ‘Cinema and Social Change’ class received a packet of various articles that had to do with a subject I hadn’t really thought about; the ratings system. After watching This Film is Not Yet Rated and digging through the articles I found a passion bubbling from inside. Why was sex such a big deal? I then proceeded to write a 9 page blog post entitled “My Way of Life is Rated X.”
So why I am I revising this subject again even I obviously went in great detail the first time? To tell you the truth, I was going to redo one of my other ones. I had a change of mind when I was flipping through all the blogs posted this semester. I remember barely saying anything during our discussion, mainly because I wanted to hear everyone’s opinion on the matter.
So the decision was made. I decided to read as many blogs on This Film is Not Yet Rated so I can look at perspectives I hadn’t thought of yet. There have also been various events in my life relating to censorship that have given me an even stronger opinion.
First off, lets refresh ourselves on what this whole unit is about. This Film is Not Yet Rated is a documentary directed by Kirby Dick that explores the existence of the MPAA and it’s effect on the ratings system. In class I was transfixed by the debate to whether the ratings system should actually exist. When I watched the movie I was convinced and thinking “Yeah! Lets bring the system down!” Then I listened. Many people agreed that the system was flawed, but there was a very convincing argument to why it exists in the first place.
One reason why the Motion Picture Association of America is to keep the government out of our hair. The system was created to free us from the threat of government censorship or control. This is a noble reason to create an association. I find the ratings system effective when I am too busy to research a film. I know parents must feel the same. Working all day, feeding the kids, and taking care of the house takes up enough time without looking up to see if a film has a curse word that would damage little Jimmies’ ears. It’s a good guideline to determine the content of a movie. The problem? This rating can dramatically affect the success of a film.
I never really thought about the rating NC-17 before this film. I had always assumed it was porn and left it at that. Never have watched porn or wanted to, I hadn’t ever seen an NC-17 film. I was astonished watching Not Yet Rated. So many fascinating films were branded NC-17 and didn’t resemble a porn. I wanted to watch a lot of these movies! If this rating turned me away, how many other people turned the same cold shoulder?
The MPAA’s decision to label a film with an NC-17 directly influences the success of a film. Huge franchises such as Wal-Mart and Blockbuster refuse to carry any film with ratings above an R. That’s straight up loss of distribution! Along with an audiences obliviousness to the content of an NC-17 film , this kills a lot of films. The rating decision also influences the ability of our youth to watch films they may be mature enough to handle.
At age 12 my mother knew I was mature enough to handle adult content in movies. We’d watch movies together that had sex, cursing, sex, violence, and drugs. These were all PG13 movies and above, but she knew me well enough to know that I would ‘watch responsibility.’ Now, my father thought more along the lines of the ratings system. If I am not 13, I shouldn’t watch certain films by myself. What ended up happening was pretty humorous. My sister and I would watch grown up movies with mom with a rule not to tell dad. I was not scarred in any way or forced to watch anything I couldn’t digest. My mother was right, and my father was delightfully ignorant.
I like the idea of the ratings system. I use it often as a summery of the content of a film. , but who is making these choices? Are they filmmakers? Schoolteachers? Policemen? We don’t know! That was the big mystery that Kirby Dick sought to reveal.
I felt the ratings system board were treated like the witness protection program. All barred up and under contract never to release any information. Why? Apparently if the world knew their identity it’d be possible to alter their opinions. In class it was mentioned that Jackie’s mother was a judge. We don’t see her flipping out any secret passwords to get to her workplace. How are we supposed to know who’s determining what we watch?
The film stated that the MPAA is supposed to be composed of regular every day parents determining what they were comfortable with their own children watching. Who picked these parents? Studio Execs. Also, how do we know if we are getting a diverse opinion. One interviewee in This Film is Not Yet Rated said that opposition was often ignored and the head of the panels would go with his or her own decision despite the votes of the group. Is the democratic system that we all stand by when facing our nations’ flag? Why aren’t we allowed to vote in our choices of members.
Here’s my idea. It might be an uneducated Utopian fantasy, but as a student it is the conclusion I have come up with. I think the ratings system should still exist, but only as a suggestion. If a kid wants to see an R rated movie, they are going to find a way to watch it. We all know what happened when the government said no to booze in the 20’s. We did it anyway.
Second, I think the members of the MPAA should be known. We could take practices from our own government and use them in the film business. There could be a vote of people that are elected to the association. Will this diversify the system? We won’t know until we try. This way we also have a say and can’t really complain if we don’t do anything about it.
Does this indifference to blood relate to real life? Do kids believe that having a gun isn’t as huge of a responsibility as it is because of how we see weapons depicted in film? Is a significant act of violence related at all to the fact that the same situation was reconciled with a nice beating in the latest Jet Li film? Shouldn’t this altered perception of violence and weapons alter the ratings of films that put death in a hyped light.
This glorification could be said about sex too. One person in the discussion about ratings said that the more fake the sex the lesser the rating. The more realistic the sex, the harsher the rating. This means that children are watching our romanticized version of sex without having a real representation. Shouldn’t it be flopped? Full Frontal Feminism says that woman and children have messed up ideas of what sex should be because of the media. If a young woman only believes she is having sex right if she screams obnoxiously without feeling anything, how is she going to feel if that’s not her first reaction?
Sydney mentioned in her blog that the message of sex in media is often “sex=bad.” Examples of this would be the media treating fornication in news as “sex scandals.” What are the psychologically affects on our society? Not only are we shown how sex ‘should’ be, but also we are told that it’s bad. That’s a lot of guilt to look forward to.
One argument stated in the blogs is that the form of rating may be archaic? Chelsea Turner mentioned the Internet and TV in her blog. She said that form of mass media was so hard to control that it had significantly less censorship than film. Who hasn’t used the Internet to watch something? This open portal of expression hasn’t killed us yet, so why are we still oppressing film? Now, if we can’t see it in film we’ll just Google “dirty.”
Now is when I connect all of the previous statements to my own life. The ratings board is put into place to ensure that our youth is not exposed to inappropriate content. Here is an example where I use my sexual upbringing to prove that honest exposure doesn’t make us all ‘sex demons.’
I’ve grown up with an incredibly open relationship with my mother. From very early on I felt comfortable enough to ask her any question that came to mind and she didn’t feel the need to hide the truth from me. In high school remember having a ‘picnic’ in the living room with my mom, two sisters, and family friends, and telling stories of sexual explorations and experiences.
I graduated high school and went off to Cottey College the year of ’08 and learned even more what it meant to be liberated. Though I felt incredibly open about sex there were still obstacles I couldn’t jump. For one, I couldn’t get myself to verbalize the word ‘vagina.’ I could spout out the word ‘penis’ any time of day with only a juvenile little giggle. This says a lot about societies views of women.
So here I was, way too uncomfortable to say the title of my own genital organ at a school that embraced just that. At Cottey we were proud. For Valentine’s day our feminist club sold chocolate vaginas and buttons that shouted “Vagina Friendly.” The week of love we also demonstrated our pride by performing the Vagina Monologues. My second year at Cottey I was one of the performers. All anxiety and discomfort was gone. I could use the word ‘vagina’ and wasn’t scared of my own.
That’s right, I was scared of my own vagina. I think a big part of that was that I didn’t have representation of it anywhere. Everywhere in the media it seems like “Penis” is posted everywhere, but rarely did I see or hear anything about vaginas in popular media.
Going to a place where it was the social norm to represent vaginas in artwork made me take my very first look down there. I had never done that before! I also masturbated for the first time in my adult life the month before my 21st birthday. The only other time was one or two little experiments in 6th grade before I hid the experience away like a dead body. Is this all because I haven’t been exposed to a nationwide liberation of the female genitalia? I don’t know, it certainly didn’t help.
With all this sexual freedom and honesty did I go whore myself about? Nope. I was not the Flathead High School slut. In fact, the information helped me go on my own to make my decisions about sex. I decided, ON MY OWN, that I didn't want to have sex until after high school. I knew that if I had to face any consequences I wouldn't be able to handle them.
Being the 'free being' i am a lot of people were shocked to find that I was a virgin before the event where I 'did the deed'. I waited until I was 21 years old, completely comfortable with my body and responsible with birth control, until I had sex. Guess what? It was great! It felt completely natural. I was ready and didn't feel any ounce of guilt after. In fact, I wanted to do it again:)
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One reason why I chose to revisit this particular film is because some of the topics concerned could be connected to my case study. I have chosen to write my 5-7 page paper on the film Passion and Power: The Power of Orgasm. This film explores the invention of the vibrator and then connects this history to a trial concerning vibrators in Texas. The trail? A woman was arrested for throwing a Passion Party in the state. It is illegal to sell ‘devices that stimulate human genitals.” It is, however, perfectly legal to buy and sell as much Viagra as you could possibly want.
This Film is Not Yet Rated touches on the fact that the MPAA is harsher on the display of female pleasure and genitals than they are male. I believe this heightened censorship is a great contribution to the oppression of women sexually. One of the main themes within Passion and Power is Women’s sexual liberation. The film states that the laws against vibrators (Full Frontal Feminism says that there are 8 states with laws against selling vibrators) are a backlash to the women’s sexual revolution. Is the fact that we are kept from seeing a woman’s pubic hair in an R rated film in the same category as a state banning women from selling tools to get off? I think so.
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