Weinsteins go to Ratings War With MPAA

[duckgirlie]

The Weinstein Brothers are appealing two ratings handed down by the MPAA, for The King's Speech, and Blue Valentine. Blue Valentine has been given an NC-17 rating, (which is extremely rare and pretty much a death sentence for a film's box-office chances) based off a single consensual sex scene (in contrast, both Hostel films are rated R

Comments

[madeline_may]

This is fucking ridiculous.

Sidenote, am I nuts, or does Canada rate much higher for heavy violence than it does for scenes of a sexual nature? In comparison to the US, anyways.

[duckgirlie]

Yeah, every country has different standards. I know 9 Songs didn't get a rating in the USA, but was released as 18s in both the UK and Ireland. (I think the Irish censor said something along the lines of 'it's not pornography, because the point of pornography is to be arousing'.) And there are a lot of films that have different cuts in different countries.

[sitakhet]

Depends where. In Quebec it almost seems like they pick a handfull of movies to rate 16+ and all the rest go for G-PG13. I don't know what the rating standard is here, though.

[agawa_jean]

It seems that way. It's still a bit confusing because provinces used to each have their own rating systems in addition to the federal ones, so it's a bit inconsistent, but I have definitely noticed that as a trend.

[magicalsibylle]

I'm very pleased with his reply, and very surprised because I never expect a whole lot from celebrities.

[brewsternorth]

I've rarely seen *anyone* in Hollywood engage misogyny in film as well as just that excerpt suggests.

Interesting to relate, I was watching Alien 3 on AMC last night, and saw quite a few instances of the absurdity of censorial sensitivities in action. There was plenty of ultra-violence, on-screen and off, one very heavily implied sex scene, but when the senior jailer happened to loose off a very much in-character F-bomb in ordinary dialogue it was blipped out.

[magicalsibylle]

I was coming here to post this. I think you left out the best part in which Ryan Gosling said:

"You have to question a cinematic culture which preaches artistic expression, and yet would support a decision that is clearly a product of a patriarchy-dominant society, which tries to control how women are depicted on screen. The MPAA is okay supporting scenes that portray women in scenarios of sexual torture and violence for entertainment purposes, but they are trying to force us to look away from a scene that shows a woman in a sexual scenario, which is both complicit and complex. It's misogynistic in nature to try and control a woman's sexual presentation of self. I consider this an issue that is bigger than this film."

[duckgirlie]

That's in there, just after the cut.

[magicalsibylle]

Yes, I just saw :) I'm really sorry.

[scullies]

It's in the post, it's just not bolded.

[ididthatonce]

1) Michelle Williams is amazing.

2) I'm really curious as to what is so "offensive" about the scene? Is it because the woman has an orgasm? I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.

3) "This Film is Not Yet Rated." I'm sure someone else has mentioned it.

4) It irritates me so much that you can show James Franco sawing off his damn arm in a movie and it's only rated R, but a woman on top of a man during sex is unacceptable. Fuck our culture. Fuck it hard.

[iteari]

It irritates me so much that you can show James Franco sawing off his damn arm in a movie and it's only rated R, but a woman on top of a man during sex is unacceptable. Fuck our culture. Fuck it hard.

Wait? THAT is the sex scene in the movie?! That's why MPAA put NC-17 on the movie. GODDAMMIT.

[ididthatonce]

I don't know if it is, but "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" said that pretty much any non-Missionary sex earns an NC-17 rating.

[duckgirlie]

That's changed a little. The first Sex and the City film had non-missionary sex and was only R.

[nnitro]

Fucking MPAA. Seconding what

[brewsternorth]

Wiki article. I'll have to see if I can find that one. Just the behind-scenes story about invocation of fair-use doctrine, and how the MPAA blithely ignores the rules it says its board hews to, is interesting.