This week in Comm we watched a very interesting documentary about the MPAA and how they basically screw over multiple directors yearly. The producer of “This Film Is Not Yet Rated”, is Kirby Dick. He interviewed many directors and set out to find a private investigator to solve the mystery: Who is in the MPAA and why is it such a big deal that the raters are kept private? The doc was to get to the bottom of the fine line between R and NC17 ratings. Directors were outraged by their films receiving NC17 ratings due to the sexual content in which it contained. For example, in the movie “Boys Don’t Cry” it received a NC17 rating due to a scene that included rape. The director was upset because there are plenty of other movies that contain content like this, but the director felt it was because of the transgender protagonist. A rating of NC17 can completely break a director, because if it is rated NC17, people may avoid seeing it because of disturbing rating. It is often fixed by the director/producers cutting scenes or making them of less quality in order to receive a better rating, which often makes the story/plot weaker.

The ladies that Kirby Dick hired were funny and took the matters quite personally. They often had to spy and even started going to the raters homes once they realized who the raters were. However, the directors were angry because a lot of the content in the movies which received a poor rating, they felt was comparable to movies that had an R rating. The movie with Maria Bello, where it received a NC17 rating because it showed a little too much, was not that big of a deal in her eyes. She felt offended, the movie was not portraying lust, it was the beauty of the love that she and the man in the scene felt. Later on in the doc, it was noted that the MPAA is more concerned about sex rather than violence, where in Europe it is the complete opposite.

Kirby Dick eventually submitted this documentary to the MPAA for rating. He received an NC17 rating due to strong and graphic sexual content. He decided that he would appeal, which led to a strange winding road of mystery and secrets as to who was on the board and what not. My personal opinion is that it is unfair that there is a small group of people who rate movies that decide who can view or not view. a man in the doc mentioned that there basically 2-3 companies who determine what can be seen by the US, controlling all media across the country. That does not seem fair. I feel bad for the directors who were black balled by the MPAA and maybe even had their careers ruined by them, because of a graphically depicted scene that was deemed “inappropriate”.