Friday, December 17, 2010 at 3:06AM MPAA to Fix Its Double Standard?
If you've been reading regularly, you know about Blue Valentine's battle with the MPAA over it's NC-17 rating for what many believed to be a not so great reason. The film features a rape scene between a couple involving alcohol (as far as I know, haven't seen the film), and for that it received the most brutal of ratings for a feature film. However, the film makers and actors appealed, and the rating was overturned and they got a much more marketable R rating. But I guess it won't end there for the MPAA.
Now, it seems there's some musings coming from the MPAA, so the fallout from Blue Valentine's battle may not fare well for fans excessively violent movies. And with people like Roger Ebert making such statements as, "In today's world, there are only two meaningful ratings: R and not-R." The MPAA looks to be addressing the double standard between sex and violence, such as how many horror movies have grown from scares and frights to torture porn.
What does this mean? That's still unclear. It may put sex and violence on closer rating terms, but I doubt it'll swing in favor of the more liberal option. I'd be willing to bet the ratings for sex stay the same, and we start to see more horror and excessively violent movies getting the dreaded NC-17 rating.
I'd like to hear your thoughts. Are we too strict with our rating system, or are the standards too loose?
Reader Comments (8)
MPAA seems to be to address the double standard of sex and violence, such as increased fear and horror movies afraid to torture porn.
Not relevant to this post, but...
Blake Edwards passed away on Dec 15, 2010. I am surprised there was no mention of him passing away on GTBP. There always used to be a post here whenever a big name dies and I feel Blake Edwards does qualify as a big name.
I hope to see a post about him soon on GTBP.
Wow, I know I had a busy week, but I can't believe I didn't hear about Blake Edwards' passing.
Visu,
Found the news and wrote an article for him. It should post sometime this afternoon. Thanks for the heads up!
For sex they should adopt the FCC's standard. If you notice there are some things you can't see even on Pay-Per-View porn, you can only see it on narrow-cast media, i.e. home video. I could list these things, but I won't here. The MPAA should make the graphic presentation of these things their marker for depictions of sexual situations. Violence is tricky, but I'd say anything more than blood, i.e. if there's more than just blood spilled in violence, then it warrants an "R". If it's more violence than what could be portrayed in a stage play, that could be a marker. I'm glad to see they're adjusting their standards. It shows there are some minds with the capability to evolve over there anyway.
Thanks Josh. Keep up the great work.
In Europe, they are the opposite of Americas with how they rate films. Sexual themes are not rated as harshly as the violent films. Though I do agree about the rating for violence and how violent a film has to be to get the NC-17 rating. I mean there are still going to be more of the "torture porn" films, but when will those films draw the line? They seem to always try and outdo the last film.
Yeah, I noticed in Europe they're much more open to sex in movies than violence. But which way should we go? Make our ratings more conservative or liberal? Or do we need to redo our rating system completely?