Film fans have long loathed the system that determines whether a beaver shot will keep a film from showing in your local cinema. The MPAA ratings board and their secret community of parental activists controls much of the film industry. If they give an indie filmmaker an NC-17, they basically kill the film, making way for more of the studio assembly line. When I spoke to him, filmmaker Kirby Dick talked about why he decided not to take it anymore.
"I had been wanting to make a film about the MPAA rating system for more than a decade and was sort of stumped in a way because of their secrecy," Dick said. "There's no way to get any information about the system at all from them. So I would have been left with a clip film, interviewing filmmakers and having them talk about their experiences. Then when Eddie [Schmidt, producer] and I came up with the idea of hiring a private investigator, that's when the whole idea clicked forward because we realized that would provide an arc to the film. We'd have cinema verite which is the background we come out of. At the same time, it would be a shot, across the bow I guess, of the MPAA by outing these people whose names have been kept secret for so long."
The PI helps Dick uncover the names and faces of the secret raters, and even finds the secret forms they use to rate films after their private screenings. 'they were silly I thought. Fucks, 20+. Some sort of description. That's not something you can really make a rating from. It's sort of a little notepad but what you really need is a set of standards and how those things are applied into a set of standards and that's what doesn't exist."
Ultimately the film shows that there are no guidelines for how film ratings are determined, but there are overall consistencies. Graphic violence gets a past but sexuality, especially alternative sexuality, is a red flag.
"I think what Mary Harron says in the film, that art films tend to make you uncomfortable, that's kind of one of the techniques that they use. Most studio films do not use that approach, so I think that's what they're reacting to. They're reacting to a characteristic of an art film, so in essence they're censoring this aspect of an artist at work, one of the tools that an artist has at their disposal."
MPAA head Jack Valenti refuses to change the system, but who is he afraid of? "Honestly, there's always going to be a few politicians who are going to attack Hollywood, but for the most part, I don't think the pressure's that great. I actually think what their fear is is they want this operating under the radar. When there's a politician, a senator or even a hearing about this, it suddenly brings up the whole issue that everybody says, "Well, wait a minute. How does it work? What are the standard?" They compare it to western Europe and they say, 'Look, this is the way it works in Europe.' I think that's what they're concerned about. They just want no publicity which is why they have not responded to our film at all. This is always the way that their MO for 30 years. There's been a history of critique from filmmakers, the media, parents organizations about this system and their MO is just not to respond."
When Dick submitted his own film for the rating, the board members got to see themselves revealed for the public to see. "they weren't happy. They've been operating under this secrecy for so long and it's so important to them. They've been led to believe it's so important. We talked to other ex-raters who we had personal connections with through a friend of a friend of a friend. We called and said, 'Hi, we had such and such.' 'Oh, hi, how are you doing?' 'And we're doing a film on the ratings.' Click. Two sentences later it was 'Goodbye, I can't talk about this.' They are under this concept that somehow it's so important that they not be outted that it makes no difference. MPAA says it's to protect them from influence, but the people who really can and do influence them have contact with them which is people in the studios, post production supervisors, heads of production have contacts with these people. They have relationships with these people. Independents don't have that. So it's a bogus setup and it's just a false sense of importance that's been communicated to them that's counterproductive to an effective rating process."
Ultimately, the reveal has not resulted in any harassment. "Not that I know of and who would? What would you do? 'Oh, you were in that film. I saw you.' What are they going to do? What are people going to do? It's ridiculous."
The film is not just Dick's rant. He has an idea for a more productive system by which to rate movies that would benefit both artists and parents. "I personally would think that it's really important that there be an extensive list of what's in a film so that people could make a decision on their own, children and adults really, in terms of sex, violence, drug use, thematic content. I would like to see a rating between R and NC-17 where art filmmakers can make films that aren't stigmatized. The process should be open. That won't hurt anybody. There should be written standards and certainly there should be some experts, child psychologists and media experts on the board. Everything they don't want should be changed really."
Now, us film geeks are all over this issue, but will this film play to the masses? So far, Dick has seen many different film communities respond to the film. "so far people have really cared. We had standing ovations at Sundance. That's one film community. Then we had standing ovation at Comic-Con which is another film community. I think people really care. I think people are really pissed off at the MPAA. They know that it's a double standard. They know that it's restricting them from seeing films that they are probably mature enough to if they are under 18, and also they are pissed off at them for this whole all these lawsuits over file sharing and the way that they've screwed around with copyright. So there's a huge amount of anger at the MPAA."
This Film Is Not Yet Rated opens Friday.
