Directors need to Get over the Ratings System
In response to the film This Film is Not Yet Rated and its critique of the ratings system of the film industry, I think that there are elements of it that are necessary to the well-being of the film industry as a whole, but that there are elements of it that are disturbing to me personally. For one thing, it has been in the hands of the same man for the past several decades, and he holds his employees to strict secrecy. To me this seems to suggest that something is being hidden which isn’t meant to be revealed, at least by the people in charge of film ratings
As for the ratings system itself, I think that it is necessary to the industry to ensure that the film’s audience is restricted as much as possible to an audience that can handle the content of the film. You wouldn’t want your five year old, for example, to watch Superbad. The system itself is flawed, though, in that DVD releases and the internet enable underage children to gain access to content they shouldn’t have access to. As for the directors who produce these NC-17 movies and then complain that they get the rating, all I really see are directors trying to push the envelope of the system and complain for the sake of complaining. In most cases, the movies border on pornographic; do we really need that kind of image even in a mature audience? Is it really necessary to the overall quality of the film to see 40 “pelvic thrusts” as This Film is Not Yet Rated describes them? Get over it. Showing racy content to portray a particular emotion or feeling in the movie is one thing, but most NC-17 films go too far from what I’ve seen. In addition, look at the amount of R Rated films these days – the numbers and amount of violence is going up. 300 for example showed plenty of artistic, slow-motion shots of decapitations, severed limbs, and more blood than a slaughterhouse. Do we really need this amount of violence? Look at Rome – they watched live killings at the Coliseum, and their empire fell apart. Are we becoming so desensitized to sex and violence? I can’t answer that, but the gratuity in which it’s portrayed in today’s world can’t help, and I think that it’s important we have the ratings systems to help control who views what films. I believe it’s important that directors be able to make a film exactly how they want to make it, and maybe some marketing pressure could be taken off of NC-17 films, but I share the opinion of one of the interviewees on This Film is Not Yet Rated in that a ratings system will not stop people from seeing a good movie, and it will not draw people to a bad movie; if the film is good, pople will come; if it’s not, they won’t.
