Kirby Dick’s exposé about the American movie ratings board. (imdb.com)

I’m hoping for a fallout, but who knows what will happen. After seeing This Film Is Not yet Rating, a documentary exposing the MPAA’s unfair, very biased ratings systems (with raters compromised of a handful of so-called typical American parents and two priests) and appeal systems (whose board consists of the heads of major media conglomerate and studios), I was livid for two seemingly conflicting reasons.

It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the document or felt moved to take action against the MPAA (which is a natural reaction, I suspect). It’s just that like Michael Moore’s Farenheight 911, I felt conflicted. Well, really, with Moore’s documentary I felt manipulated. With Kirby’s I felt a bit irate as to the excessive amount of female nudity was shown and the minimal amount of male nudity. The documentary was about the MPAA’s censorship (although they wouldn’t call it censorship) through its biased rating system and questionable appeals process. And though the film rallied against forcing biased morality on the American film audience by censoring what they think is amoral behavior in film (namely non-missionary sex between a man and a woman in a bed), I was just very disappointed that they, like all advertisers of any sort, used gratuitous scenes of women being “fucked” or standing around naked or whatever in the beginning of the film with black boxes covering their privates, somewhat, to show censorship rather than showing just as many male bits and pieces being black-boxed. I know, I know,this film is not about sexuality, filmmaker’s moral or social responsibility, etc. But, then when I saw the poster for the film of a naked woman with her ass facing us, I just couldn’t take it. The poster above is of a man not quite mooning us as the lady is (I’m not going to place that poster here because there’s enough naked women on the internet). But, if you visit the film’s site you’ll notice the stark contrast. Why isn’t the man’s ass completely exposed as the woman’s? I know why, but doesn’t make it any less difficult to tolerate. Naked women is not art. It’s lack of imagination.

As much as the film rallies against censorship, against forced morality standards, against big corporations monopolizing what we see and experience, the film is just another of many that ironically “speaks” to the lowest common denominator through gratuitous, offensive and unimaginative scenes of female nudity and violence. With all this said, I still am happy I saw the film because I know more about MPAA regulations of what I get to see and experience and I felt no qualms about signing the petition online to temper the MPAA’s ratings and appeals system. I’m not a conservative or a liberal or an Independent because to “say” I am one means people “hear” I am not the others and I know I’m a little of everything. With that said, if and when I become part of the film industry, I will make it my responsibility to make films or make sure the films I am involved with are films I consider don’t aim for the lowest common denominator for laughs or dramatic appeal. If you look at films made abroad like British films, there’s more natural expression of male and female nudity without gratuity and violence than any number of American films. Some people argue that sometimes it’s necessary for art’s sake. Bullshit! I’ve watched hundreds of films and I can tell you with certainty that the qualty of any of the really good films would not have been diminished even a sliver if a woman’s ass or breast wasn’t shown, and especially if violence against a woman was only eluded to without being gratuitously shown like a border line snuff film without the snuff and only if it was crucial to the plot. But that’s just me…

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