The terrific new documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated takes us into the murky world of American censorship. Not only is it murky because its critirea is so arbitrary but it is done entirely in secret, or at least it was until this film was released!
The director (the wonderful Kirby Dick) is on screen in the film as he hires a pair of detectives to find out who these people are and how they make their ratings. He and the detectives do a great job of finding out who these people are and Mr. Dick then weaves this in to other information he uncovers and puts it all into context. Why the secrecy? It’s because they have something to hide of course.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) run for decades by Jack Valenti is a group in the film industry with government ties that self-regulates supposedly so the government won’t. This is really a joke because as it explained, if the government got involved there would be a judiciary branch to oversee abuses. As it is now there is no recourse if the MPAA gives your film an R or a NC-17. You can appeal but if you lose and get an NC-17 newspapers and television stations will not carry your ads so you have no way of reaching the masses. The same corporate entities that own the film industry also own much of that media.
Also important is that the media is now owned by 6 entities and their parent companies, they now literally own 90% of all mainstream media in the US. May I add yet again this is why we desperately need to bust media consolidation hard, we all lose with no competition and the power it gives these corporations is everything our Founding Fathers would weep over.
We learn so many things in the documentary, like who views and votes on the films and who sits on the appeals board. One of the most shocking is that there are 2 clergy members on the board and they vote even thought we are told officially that they don’t (always an Episcopalian and a Catholic priest). We also learn via the South Park co-creator Matt Stone that independent films are treated much worse than Studio films (he has done both) and we learn that it is sex and not violence that is censored. There are so many horrendous scenes of violence in PG, PG-13, R and NC-17 films but it is the sex that freaks these censors. They say that one is not considered worse than the other but Mr. Dick shows that sex is 75% of what is objected to and violence only 25%.
There are wonderful filmmakers from Kimberly Pierce (Boys Don’t Cry) to John Waters as well as the actress Maria Bello who take their careers in their hands by talking on the record about their problems with the MPAA, the very board who will rate their next films. These brave people are to be applauded, in a time when people are afraid to speak out these people tell their stories.
A few former members of the ratings board speak out (although now they are made to sign something forbidding them from ever talking or writing about this, a true abuse of power in asking people to give up their first amendment rights). We find out there have not been any openly gay members of the ratings board and the director shows instances of gay sex in exactly the same form as straight sex side by side on screen, only the gay sex is always carries a stronger rating. Love is love and sex is sex but the ratings board thinks same sex is dirty or more objectionable (anyone sense the clergy here?). There are loads of film clips all throughout the film to illustrate and since many of these are explicit this documentary is given an NC-17!
Please check this film if it comes to your town and if it doesn’t then look for it on DVD or cable. It’s entertaining and incredibly informative. Here are a list of Theaters and Dates where the film will be playing.
I was happy to see that this film will be playing wider than NY and LA, check the link and see if it’s playing near you anytime soon.
Censorship is going to become a bigger and bigger issue in the US now that the R’s have packed the judiciary.
I don’t believe in censorship, as I told this community with regard to the Path to 9/11.
I don’t believe in censoring myself either. So while I would defend anyone’s right to free expression, let me express how distasteful I find it to see a woman’s branded butt as the promo for anything. Objectification and violence against women need to be pointed out, not taken for granted.
wow Kahil, i don’t find it tasteless at all because it is done as an example of how the ratings board turns us all into branded cattle with their ratings. If you see the film you will understand the point made about female pubic hair and various male body parts also.
by the way there were 3 different posters, and one was of a nude male torso in the same vein. i chose this one because i thought it was artistically the most interesting because it reminded me of Mattisse’s nudes.
i put up the other poster for your um… viewing pleasure.
as you can see, same idea. we are being branded, all of us.
Thanks for engaging on this.
Truth be told, I don’t find branded men all that pleasurable either. ; ) I don’t know how Alberto Gonzales feels.
Your diary, and the issue it addresses, are well worth discussing. I personally find it crazy that sex and swearing can’t be seen or heard, but violence is okay. Unless it is against animals.
I guess I would draw important distinctions between a Modigliani nude and a movie poster with a branded woman on it. Too often women are regarded as chattel in this culture, even more so in some other cultures.
Our patriarchy doesn’t even recognize the less overt forms of violence against women. I suspect a scene in which the audience watched a women being branded would raise objections (as I hope a scene about a man being branded might), but as long as the viewer isn’t confronted with the icky details it is probably not even going to register with most people.
One of the most interesting plays I’ve seen recently was by Edward Albee. “Sylvia” takes a hard and uncomfortable look at the arbitrary ways cultures decide some things are acceptable while others are beyond the pale.
Anyway, I think the issues in this diary are important, and I will look for the film.
that’s what i love about the poster, that it isn’t supposed to be titilating.
the reason i liked the first poster the best is because it comments on art and nudes and the fact that paintings are not rated because of their content but movies are (why- for parents supposedly, but have art museums kept children under 17 from looking at nudes?) and who are these ‘branders’ and what are their criteria is what the film is about.
I don’t mean to beat a dead horse. (Definitely X rated).
I think the context of our society does matter with the posters. For example, a branded black body will have a different connotation given our history.
It is interesting that nudity in paintings and sculpture is usually “good” while the same in movies is “bad”. Maybe it is because most museum works don’t show people in the act of intercourse. Yet, even these works can evoke strong reactions in people. I love many of Maplethorpe’s nude male figures, but I admit to being very uncomfortable at his images of apparently violent sexual acts.
On the other hand as part of a public art display in Chicago a few years ago, a series of Botero sculptures were displayed along Michigan Avenue. The large naked bronze male ended up with a very shiny penis from all the rubbing it received from passersby!
Good old American Puritanism at work.
you’re not beating a dead horse at all, it’s an interesting discussion for me. I would have loved to see the Botero’s by the way.
Nude sculptures still bring out the puritans in our society, hence Ashcroft’s draping those breasts making us a laughingstock in Europe and Latin America.
Other cultures are still squeamish about it, I notice there is little or no male or female nudity in Asian films and they don’t even allow kissing in the huge Indian film industry! Yet in Africa nudity is completely natural.
alone don’t carry meaning outside intent & context.
A photo-shopped image of a branded woman is no more inherently offensive than, say, a pig’s snout plastered on a president’s face (make up yr own example).
These posters are making a point about “branding” & marketing in our society, using a visual/verbal pun, & indeed gain power (& evoke repulsion in this instance) by drawing on the very history you’d condemn them by.
One acquaintance of ours has a tribal design brand lovingly encircling her lower neck (actually just below). Another friend has a series of 5 strikes on her ankle. A “Prime Grade A” tatoo on her black ass. (Both brandingss were done by ‘modern primitive’ Fakir Musafir.) Our friend’s brand & tatoo are both personal expressions, highly conscious of the histories they invoke.
A photo-shopped image of a branded woman is no more inherently offensive than, say, a pig’s snout plastered on a president’s face (make up yr own example).
I disagree. Putting a pig’s face on a powerful male works against the stereotype. Presenting a woman as property and as a recipient of violence reinforces stereotype.
I also don’t think I condemned anything. I to think it is important to point out that when such images are used they tend to reinforce the current power structure. (The power structure, I probably do condemn.)
The point about your friends is interesting, but, not I think particularly apt.
I’m going to jump in, if only b/c it’s what I do …
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There is an interesting line w/ images or words when an artist subverts the usual use of those words or images. Like the way some have tried the reclamation of “nigger”, “dyke”, “queer” etc, or the way some proud femmes appropriate or subvert the usual imagery of porn and turn it into personal expressions of sexual freedom or power (which I understand other femmes have problems with). The image of a man being degraded w/ hood and wires becomes a powerful protest against the mindset that dreamt up that torture when used by a skilled artist.
Most people are blind to the way our culture, or at least the businesses who manufacture it, turn people into commodities, into products. I found these posters powerful because they make that relationship so literal and unavoidable. By inspiring conversations like this, these images provide catalysts to highlight examinations of this issue.
My two cents, and being a bit of an “everything goes” absolutist when it comes to the use of words, images etc, I’m sure my words here come as no suprise to those who’ve read my stuff over the last couple of years.
Mike McGee’s poem, “Their Guys, Their Asian Glittering Guys, Are Gay” sparked off a fascinating firestorm of discussion around questions of racial representation & racist rhetoric. The contours of that convo can be entered through Pam Lu or Kasey Silem Mohammad.
was about context & intent, but you’re free to continue to ignore it.
Gee I was talking about context. But you are free to continue to ignore that.
I don’t understand why you are so antagonistic. Wilfred and I didn’t agree but managed to have a civil conversation. You disagree with me — that’s fine. I would learn more from you if you didn’t present your ideas as if I had no choice but to agree with your point of view.
Sorry, I find fundamentalisms inherently silly. P’haps I should have attached a smiley face?
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(I brought up my friend, not as analogy, but as instance where your equation of imagery w/ ‘violence against women’ is clearly absurd)
Thanks, Wilfred. I will be looking for this on DVD to buy for the place I work.
Kahli and Wilfred, I’m brain-dead for the day and don’t have anything to add, but thank you both for the very interesting discussion.