culture
Green Before Gay
Money and mass thought are the MPAA's homophobic motives
by John Esther
ong overdue, Kirby Dick’s This Film Is Not
Yet Rated investigates the Motion Picture
Association of America’s super-secretive
ratings board.
Clandestinely conducting its affairs for
years, this extremely powerful group responsible for
deciding whether a film is rated G, PG, PG-13, R or
NC-17 (formerly X) censors, offers the studios pref­
erential treatment and feels more comfortable with
violence and rape than sex and female pleasure.
Moreover, the board is inclined to give a more
mature rating for images of queer sex than their
hetero counterparts. While people like MPAA
spokeswoman Kori Bernard defends the board’s
Lesbian private investigator Becky Altringer
reveals the names of the people on the MPAA's
super-secretive ratings board.
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homophobia with startling remarks such as, “We
don’t set the standards; we just reflect them,” that
is only half the story. Because the MPAA works in
the interests of the major studios, and gay movies
usually come from independent filmmakers, it is
not in the studios’ financial interests to include gay
images unless it is profitable.
“If a gay scene might cost some ticket sales, it will
probably wind up on the editing floor,” said Dick, an
Oscar nominee for Twist of Faith, his 2004 documen­
tary on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
Jon Lewis agrees. The Oregon State University
professor and author of Hollywood v. Hard Core:
How the Struggle Over Censorship Created the
Modem Industry appears in the documentary.
“Kirby’s film seems to share the essence of my
larger argument that the bottom line for the
MPAA these days is not morality but money,”
Lewis told Just Out via e-mail. “In Hollywood
there’s an adage one often hears: ‘When they say
it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.’ This
certainly applies to film censorship.”
Rigorously researched, Dick’s documentary illus­
trates the board’s homophobia by comparing and
contrasting clips from films such as A Dirty Shame,
American Pie, American Psycho and Basic Instinct.
Jamie Babbit, director of But I’m a Cheerleader,
tells Dick she felt discriminated against by the
MPAA for making a film about queer teenagers.
Filmmaker Kimberly Peirce discusses the ordeal she
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had to go through with the MPAA to get it to low­
er its initial rating of Boys Don’t Cry from NC-17 to
R because a woman (Chloe Sevigny) was enjoying
Director Kirby Dick includes clips from films that
a trans man’s (Hilary Swank) cunnilingus capabil­ have been given harsher ratings because of
ity. In a very humorous clip, Atom Egoyan relays queer sex scenes.
his conversation with'the ratings board about a
threesome scene involving two men in last year’s
ago: She reveals who makes up the MPAA board.
NC-17 film Where the Truth Lies.
For Altringer, it was a professional and personal
“The film is accurate when it focuses on the
awakening.
double standard evident in the ratings system. Gay-
“It’s really appalling to me that they’ll rate a rape
themed films are invariably treated more harshly
scene better than a scene with two fully clothed
than films that feature equal amounts of hetero­
women kissing,” she said. “That’s just absurd to me.
sexual sex. Certainly with regard to male-on-male
The more I got involved with the investigation, the
sex, there is a distinct prejudice,” said Lewis. “But
more I was upset with the way they do it.”
to be fair, rhe ratings system was designed in 1968
A vital tool in the battle against homophobia,
to be flexible, to reflect and respond to changes in
This Film Is Not Yet Rated is worth the price of a
the American Zeitgeist. Many people in the
movie ticket and then some. It is time to make the
contemporary mainstream American audience are
MPAA board accountable and open in order to
uncomfortable with gay sex, and the ratings system
stop reinforcing the marginalization of the queer
community. ©
is merely adapting to current attitudes. Lesbian
scenes are another matter entirely—but this is also
a reflection of current attitudes.”
T his F ilm I s N ot Y et R ated plays through Sept. 21
To create an arc for this expose, Dick hired
at Cinema 21 ,616 N.W. 21st Ave. Jon Lewis will
Becky Altringer, a lesbian private investigator, to
introduce the documentary 7 pm. Sept. 16 and lead a
hunt down the names of the people who control
20-minute discussion afterward.
the content of what we see. By simply doing some
staking out, taking down license plate numbers and
J ohn E sther is a Dis Angeles freelance film critic
rummaging through trash (where they find memos
whose work has appeared in Cineaste, Curve,
about the terrible PG-13 film Memoirs of a Geisha),
Lesbian News and The Harvard Gay & Lesbian
she does what should have been done a long time
Review.
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