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By
WAYNE KLEIN
This expose of the Hollywood
ratings system provides insight into how censoring
yourself may prevent government intervention but
can also contribute to a system that seems
arbitrary and unfair to those film directors that
don't make major studio films. Kirby's film "This
Film Is Not Yet Rated" amusingly takes a look at
the history of Hollywood policing itself and how
it does it today. He also asks a number of hard
questions about the standards that the MPAA
employees and why the organization must operate
with as much secrecy as the CIA.
Interviewing people such as actress Maria Bello
("The Cooler," the TV show "ER" and "A History of
Violence") , cult film director John Waters
("Polyester") and others working outside the
studio system as independent directors and
producers, what's reflected is a system that is
badly flawed, very subjective and does a
disservice to viewers. What he discovered are
people that have no qualifications beyond their
opinions, have established a rudimentary system to
"judge" films that has become meaningless in terms
of what it truly tells the consumer, quibble over
the sexual positions or even head movement in sex
scenes and use their personal morality to make
Hollywood's product seem acceptable.
We get a number of deleted scenes including a
whole section on how the MPAA and Hollywood use
lobbyists to stifle new technology that they deem
a threat to their material. One expert discusses
how copyright law has been impacted by the
studios. Disney evidently protects their
copyrights (even material that they have taken
from the public domain such as the stories of Hans
Christian Anderson's "The Little Mermaid" or
classic fairy tales like "Beauty and the Beast"
making public domain material somehow their own)
vigorously often having a negative impact.
Interestingly in the section on film piracy (and
in the Q&A section in the extras) Kirby points out
that the MPAA has a division devoted to this
problem but has no problem with pirating product
themselves (they copied Kirby's early version of
the film without his consent violating his rights
to the material).
Certainly we must have a standard to help parents
and adult viewers decide what they want to watch
in theaters. Ironically, the ratings system has
become more of a marketing tool (think of all
those "Unrated" special editions that sell out)
than a system designed to look out for the
public's welfare. |
