Gore Is Gore, But Should Context Matter?

[Guest NoCalMike]

Spike Lee, who I am not the biggest fan of, made a good point when he said that, showing full frontal nudity in a film, is borderline nc-17. Yet Spielberg can go and make Saving Private Ryan which quite frankly could be the most graphic war movie ever, and he has no trouble getting an R rating. So my question do you think it is fair the way the MPAA, puts a bias towards movies that they think will rake in the money with, or do you defend the actions of the MPAA........comments??

[Guest red_file]

I think the MPAA has a bias towards studios who are willing to play ball with them. Supposedly the MPAA is more lenient towards the big studios than towards independent ones. For example, both Clerks and Pulp Fiction were put before the MPAA and released in 1994. Clerks was given an NC-17 rating for its language (sexually suggestive and crude, but really fucking funny) while Pulp Fiction was given an R rating even though it contained comparable language and a good deal of violence. The MPAA eventually lowered the rating on Clerks to an R, but that was only after studio pressure. The fact that Pulp Fiction was submitted by a larger studio probably should not be overlooked.

 

What Spike Lee said, though, has to do with something else. Puritantical values, perhaps. For some reason Americans view sex as more damaging to see than violence. Those in control feel that "protecting" the public from exposure to sex is more important than limiting the amount of violence we see. It's just the way it is.

 

I'm of the opinion that very few people go to see a movie without knowing what they're going to see. If you went to see The Princess Diaries you probably wanted to see a tame story about a girl getting schooled about becoming a princess; if you wanted to see that type of story you probably would not have gone to see Headhuned 9: Stumpy's Revenge. So, I don't really see the point of a rating system. If one doesn't bother to find out what type of movie one's going to see (which begs the question "why are you going to see it if you don't have a reasonable idea of what to expect from it") then you probably deserve to get offended.

 

The final question, that of "should context matter," is an interesting one. IIRC the rating system in the UK factors in context (if I have that mistaken, please correct me). I'm not sure if it does any good. Everyone views a scene differently and I don't think I can trust Joe Censor's opinion of the context of a potentially offensive scene. For example, in Eyes Wide Shut there is a party scenes were there are numerous naked people. A censor might look at that scene and say that it was unnecessary and was only there to titilate; I look at the scene and see the thematic reasons for putting it in there; I can see the context where the censor would just see naked tits and fucking.

 

I think the MPAA has a really screwed up system and there's probably no chance that it will improve.

[Guest NoCalMike]

Yah, and even the party scenes in the theatrical release were edited. I think it is sad how an organization like the MPAA, gets to say what I, the ticket-buying movie-goer is allowed to see and not see. There are just too many people that see a pair of breasts and can't get past the fact that there are breasts on the screen, and like you pointed out red-file, any half-brained twit can understand why the "graphic" visuals in Eyes Wide Shut HAD to be used.

[Guest C.H.U.D.]

Money and stroke in Hollywood have a lot to do with how MPAA rates a movie.

 

Look at the "brain scene" in Hannibal. That was pretty explicit, yet it was given an R rating. Low budget horror flicks are forced to cut similar stuff to get an R rating. Hell, Orgazmo was rated NC-17 for no reason.

[Guest razazteca]

NC-17 in my opinion should only be given for obscene sex scenes.

 

As for the Great Organzmo, that movie was all about sex, being a porno star super hero. The sidekick had a dildo on his head as part of his costume!!! Funny yes but obscene, it was basically a B movie porno with a plot, just one step away from Vivid and playboy.

[Guest jimmy no nose]

NC-17 in my opinion should only be given for obscene sex scenes.

 

As for the Great Organzmo, that movie was all about sex, being a porno star super hero. The sidekick had a dildo on his head as part of his costume!!! Funny yes but obscene, it was basically a B movie porno with a plot, just one step away from Vivid and playboy.

But it didn't even have any nudity really. I don't understand. There wasn't even a great deal of strong language.

 

It's a well known fact that big studios will put out some money to the MPAA to bring the rating down if there is only a few things that they feel must be in the movie that take the rating up. Another Kevin Smith movie that nearly got an NC-17 simply for language was Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Watch the stuff on the DVD that had to be deleted to keep the rating at R. None of it was any worse than any other part of that movie or many others. The rating system doesn't make any sense to me.

[Guest Ripper]

Yeah, Orgazmo had no REAL sex scenes, basically only legs moving around. There is NO reason that movie should have gotten NC-17

 

My number one movie on the WHUT THE FUCK rating is 2 girls and a Guy. What in the name of god warented a NC-17 rating for that movie?? It featured a "sex" scene with no nudity. HOW IN THE WORLD DID IT GET THAT RATING.

[Guest dreamer420]

I agree about Orgazmo. I have seen both versions and I can't pick out one difference between them.

[Guest razazteca]

it basically comes down to content of what Organzmo is about, its a comedy about the porn industry and the MPAA frown on it.

 

and yes I see the irony about Boogie Nights, Strip Tease, Show Girls being big studios projects getting their way. I guess it all depends on what kind of "donation" is made to the MPAA in fines blah blah blah.

[Guest Vyce]

Spike Lee, who I am not the biggest fan of, made a good point when he said that, showing full frontal nudity in a film, is borderline nc-17. Yet Spielberg can go and make Saving Private Ryan which quite frankly could be the most graphic war movie ever, and he has no trouble getting an R rating.

 

It's a good point, but knowing Spike, the only reason he was using Spielberg as the example is because Stephen's Jewish.

 

The MPAA, much like the FCC, is outdated and run by ignorant fools.

[Guest J*ingus]

and yes I see the irony about Boogie Nights, Strip Tease, Show Girls being big studios projects getting their way.

Showgirls WAS rated NC-17.

 

And the MPAA has been a backwards, fucked-up organization since it was first established, that's hardly news there.

[Guest El Satanico]

The only reason that there should be ratings is to keep kids out of stuff made for adults. I don't fall into the thinking of violence and sex turns kids into monster. But there are some stuff kids shouldn't see easily. Also the over 18 people don't really want kids in thier r rated "adult movies".

 

R rated should be open to almost anything. There is no reason to limit what can be rated r. Kids are usaully successfully kept out of r rated movie now that they have made theaters to start cracking down harder.

 

NC-17 shouldn't be used unless there is explicit sex or excessive gore and/or violence. By excessive gore and violence i mean the really really brutal shit that only die hard gore hounds(like me) would enjoy.

 

The biggest problem with censorship in America is that the "moral police" are always forcing their excessive "morality" onto everyone.

[Guest RetroRob215]

I hate the MPAA. On the Fast and the Furious DVD they have a clip of the MPAA editing to get a PG-13 rating. It was FOUR FUCKING FRAMES!! Seriously, they show the not clipped version and you see the gore for 2 seconds longer than the PG-13 rating.

[Guest CoreyLazarus416]

There's actually about a chapter-long rant in Lloyd Kaufman's book All I Needed To Know About Filmmaking I Learned From The Toxic Avenger, but I don't feel like flipping through my copy to find his exact words.

 

Basically, he said the MPAA were a bunch of elitist Nazi's that only gave a movie an R-rating if they liked the company making them, or their reputation. Since Troma has a reputation of beign utterly disgusting, gross, obscene, etc., the MPAA gave Tromeo & Juliet, easily the cleanest Troma film not produced in 54th Street Productions (a sister company to Troma that produces mostly serious and family films), an NC-17 rating. Now, pardon me, but the scenes of violence are so utterly fake it's obvious they won't harm anybody. Is there nudity? A total of maybe a minute and thirty seconds TOPS, and it's only boobs (of course, they are rubbing up against each other, but half of the movie Species 2 was nothing but nudity, and that got an R-rating easily). The movie is a tremendous piece of celluloid, especially considering that it had the lowest budget for a Troma film EVER, and it got stiffed from most mainstream critics and the MPAA because of the company that made it.

 

This, my friends, is censorship, albeit in an awkward form. Well, maybe not so much censorship, but more along the lines of prejudice. I know, it's BOTH. It's censorship through prejudice.

 

Fuck the MPAA, fuck the FCC, and fuck whatever other censorship-loving bastards want to give ratings to pieces of shit these days just to get a few bucks "under the table." To quote the asshole punk kid in Terror Firmer:

NEVER GIVE UP THE FIGHT FOR TRULY INDEPENDENT CINEMA

 

PS. Cecil B. Demented owns ye all.

[Guest razazteca]

how much did Kevin Smith have to "donate" to get a R rating?

[Guest J*ingus]

Nothing, he just had to cut out about half an hour of J&SBSB.

[Guest godthedog]

PS. Cecil B. Demented owns ye all.

wasn't 'cecil b. demented' released by a major studio?

[Guest CoreyLazarus416]

It was directed by John Waters and contains plenty of jokes about Hollywood and the series of unnecessary sequels and life-affirming happy endings they put out each year. Therefore, it owns ye all.

[Guest J*ingus]

It still doesn't excuse the fact that CBD contained a LOT of really bad acting, though. John Waters is a lot like Kevin Smith, the more money he spends on a movie, the worse it looks.