These Thoughts are Not Yet Rated

I just got back from watching a thought provoking film. I will stipulate that provoking me to thought takes about as much impetus as it take to get a grizzly to eat ripe huckleberries, but that is beside the point. The film is called This Film is Not Yet Rated. It is a fun documentrary about the MPAA rating system. Never heard of the film? Doesn't surprise me, neither had I until tonight. You see the films rated NC-17 which pretty much guarantees you will never hear about it. As the film explains, distributors won't touch an NC-17 and theaters won't show it either. I happen to be fortunately exiled to a community that has not one, but two excellent independent "artfilm" theaters complete with edgy ambiance and people wearing black. My local credit union has a link to the local theaters on its website, so I get to see adds for all kinds of movies of which I've never heard. And I am what you might call a movie buff. Not the AMC magazine reading, blog review site hosting type, but I often leave Blockbuster with a backhoe.

So enough about me, to the film. As it turns out the bad guy in the whole MPAA story is one of my all time favorite targets, Corporate America. I always thought the ratings were based on some sort of system that was adjusted over time and was produced by an independent body of people. Oh contraire mon frere, the MPAA is entirely funded by the 6 major studios. The same people who bring you Fox news, CNN and Time Magazine. And the raters take themselves so seriously that their identities are a secret held with Bush Administration like vigilance. They want to avoid pressure you see (although they meet freely with studio executives.) This star chamber of "average Americans with school age kids" make up the rating board. So the film is basically about this filmmaker's Michael Moore like quest to unmask and undress the MPAA. I don't want to ruin the film but suffice it to say that 10 or so people get to decide what movies you can and can't hear about and what is fit for little Johnny to see. And their decisions are completely arbitrary and cannot reasonably be appealed.

I am more interested, though, in what this film had to say about our society, its values and prejudices. For example, the naked male penis or female pubic hair are anathema. We do not
have sex in any style that deviates from missionary or woman on top. Lesbianism, as long as
its the college girl - just to turn the guys on - Anne Heche on again, off again sort of variety is OK, but male/male sex right out. All of this is regardless of the context or the treatment. Cross these lines, it's NC-17 and your film disappears (Unless of course you are one of the six aforementioned studions then you might get some notes and a chance to blur your way into an R.) A man masturbating is R worthy, a woman talking about masturbation is NC-17. Shooting a woman's face while having a prolonged orgasm is a no-no, a man having an extended...who the fuck am I kidding, even with viagra that won't happen.

So that America is ridiculously prudish about sex and the human body is not revelatory, but the attitudes this shows about what is acceptable sex is, I think, interesting.

"We certainly don't want to see naughty parts because that will turn our thoughts to sex. When we do have sex, it is in a good upright boy(missionary) or girl(cowgirl) making fasion. We don't play with asses or put our mouths on things or fuck like dogs. Another thing we simply cannot tolerate is female pleasure. Here's the problem. It is potentially endless. I mean left to her own devices she can go for hours; introduce a petroleum derivative and she never has to stop. We know the blue pill has a four hour maximum so after that...she's moving on. Once she gets a taste of that tingly goodness, she won't be able to control herself. She's too weak willed. She'll be humping 24 hours a day on the internet before you know it! And homosexuality, well, that's just against God's plan!"

Of course, decapitating someone with a spoon and defecating in the cavity it leaves is only mildly disturbing.

Which brings me to one of the most interesting paradoxes about the moral arbiters (go ahead and substitute evangelicals there) of our fair nation. I've been reading the Bible a bit lately and Jesus comes out pretty strongly against violence of any kind, but doesn't really say anything about heterosexual sexuality outside of lusting after someone else's wife. I get their fanatical positions on homosexuality, the Bible's pretty clear there, but how they can condone violence and worse still promote warfare and torture, while declaring a crusade against human sexuality is entirely beyond me. I've been through both testaments, sex is not a sin, nor is it unclean. So what's the problem. As a matter of fact the naked human body is a reflection of Eden before the fall.

We all deal with the naked body, we all will have sex (except maybe you Landru :-0 ) alone
and with possibly several partners. It is a part of our daily lives. Our parents even had to have sex at least once.

We will likely, however, never disembowel someone. So you tell me which is the more troubling image.