{"id":30312,"date":"2006-04-02T07:31:10","date_gmt":"2006-04-02T11:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/?p=30312"},"modified":"2016-01-31T20:47:26","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T01:47:26","slug":"kirby-dick-unrated-taking-on-the-motion-picture-ratings-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/2006\/04\/02\/kirby-dick-unrated-taking-on-the-motion-picture-ratings-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Kirby Dick Unrated: Taking on the Motion Picture Ratings System"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Filmmaker Kirby Dick talks to an audience about his film This Film Is Not Yet Rated.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since its debut at the Sundance Film Festival this past January, Kirby Dick\u2019s documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated<\/strong> has been on the \u201cmust-see\u201d list for many film fans. Ripping down the veil of secrecy that hides the process by which films are rated for content, Dick exposes the anonymous employees of the Motion Picture Association of America that sit in judgment of virtually every film that is released in the United States and the favorable treatment that many mainstream films get over movies produced by smaller, independent companies.<\/p>\n

All film studios and nearly all independent filmmakers submit their product to the MPAA to have the familiar G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17 ratings bestowed on them based on their content. But as the many directors interviewed for the documentary maintain, it is a deeply flawed system that contains no transparency or accountability.<\/p>\n

From the moment Jack Valenti was named head of the MPAA when it was founded in 1968, he would time and again state in public forums that the ratings board was made up of ordinary, average parents with children between the ages of five and seventeen. Kirby\u2019s film challenges this notion, with the director hiring a private investigator to ferret out the ratings board member\u2019s names.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are people that are performing a job that\u2019s in the public interest,\u201d says Kirby to an audience at the 15th annual Philadelphia Film Festival who has just finished screening the film. \u201cThe public has every right to know who these people are.\u201d<\/p>\n

The results of the investigation are damning, with it being revealed that five of the nine board members have children over that age range Valenti claimed, while a sixth member has no children at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you have is a group of parents with really no training,\u201d Kirby explains. \u201cThey don\u2019t work from any standards. They just make it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years, filmmakers have complained about the rating process, charging that films with certain themes- mostly related to sexuality \u2013 will receive more restrictive ratings than films with violent content. Independent films also seem to have a harder time with the ratings board than films from the major studios, which coincidentally are the financers of the MPAA. Since most newspapers won\u2019t accept advertising for an NC-17 film and most theatre chains won\u2019t exhibit an NC-17 film, Dick\u2019s film argues that a certain amount of economic blackmail is being practiced against films that may deal with sex or violence in a realistic or mature fashion, forcing filmmakers to water down their work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s self-censorship that happens,\u201d Kirby states. \u201cThe investor, be it a studio or whoever puts money into a film, when it gets to the ratings stage, they\u2019re not going to want to endanger their bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that struck me is that all the filmmakers I interviewed thought they had R rated films,\u201d Kirby elaborates. \u201cThey were all stunned. Why can\u2019t there be some good guideline in advance for these filmmakers?\u201d<\/p>\n

While Dick concedes that one could probably sue the MPAA over their practices, it\u2019s not a very prudent thing to do in the closed economic bubble of Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could argue \u2018Restraint of trade\u2019,\u201d he says of any potential lawsuit. \u201cBut nobody would really want to do it because everybody does business with the studio. All you\u2019re going to do is piss off people that you\u2019re going to turn around and do business with.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the MPAA\u2019s ratings board isn\u2019t always the final word on a movie\u2019s rating. If a filmmaker feels he has been unjustly awarded a rating, he can file an appeal with a second board within the MPAA made up of various studio and distributor officials. However, filing an appeal doesn\u2019t necessarily mean an over turning of the rating, but the process does again seem weighted towards product from the major studios and against films from smaller, independent companies.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cOne of the things that the MPAA does is that they don\u2019t keep records,\u201d states Dick. \u201cThere are no records as to how many ratings they overturn [on appeal]. We had to go back through the Hollywood Reporter week by week to try and find any and we could only go back to `02. What we found out was that studio films were three times as likely to be overturned then independent films. Independent films were maybe overturned 10 to 20 per cent of the time while studio films were about 50 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the weeks following the film\u2019s Sundance Festival premier, Dick found himself in a rather ironic turn of events when he discovered that the MPAA, who also do much work in preventing the illegal copying of films, may have made an unauthorized copy of his film.<\/p>\n

\u201cA few days before I submitted the film I thought, \u2019They\u2019re not going to want to give this film back once they see it,\u2019\u201d explained Dick. \u201cSo I called them and said, \u2018Look, I\u2019m really worried about piracy and I just want to make sure that nobody\u2019s going to make copies.\u2019 \u2018Oh no, no, don\u2019t worry. We don\u2019t need to see it, only the raters see it,\u2019 they said. I found out when I was talking to Greg Getman their attorney, I casually asked him if he had seen it. There was a pause\u2026\u2018Yes.\u2019 I didn\u2019t say anything, I just let it go.<\/p>\n

\u201cLater I was talking to [rating\u2019s board chairperson] Joan Graves and asked \u201cOh by the way has [current MPAA head] Dan Glickman seen it?\u2019 and she said \u2018Yes,\u2019\u201d Dick continued. \u201cI started asking her, \u2018Well, if Dan Glickman lives in Washington, how did he see it?\u2019 And she said \u2018Well he saw part of it,\u2019 and was really evasive. So I asked \u2018Was a copy made?\u2019 and she said \u2018Not to my knowledge.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cA few days later, Greg Getman called back and said, \u2018I have to tell you this, we have a copy. But don\u2019t worry it\u2019s safe in my office,\u2019\u201d concludes Dick, laughing. \u201cAnd they won\u2019t give it back! This is the organization that has that ridiculous anti-piracy campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

While people have been lobbying for ratings reform for a long time, the MPAA has been slow to affect any change. Still Dick is helpful that his film will change that tide.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are four things I focus on,\u201d says Dick. \u201cOne is that the whole process is open. Two is that there is some sort of standards. Three is that there are some experts on the board. Four is that there is some training. The whole process needs to be fixed so it\u2019s a process that everybody can understand and everybody can respect.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor 25 years they\u2019ve been barraged by everyone from Roger Ebert to major filmmakers, all different kinds of groups,\u201d states Dick. \u201cBut they\u2019ve just ignored it. Hopefully, this will put enough pressure on them that they\u2019ll at least be a little more responsive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since its debut at the Sundance Film Festival this past January, Kirby Dick\u2019s documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated has been on the \u201cmust-see\u201d list for many film fans. Ripping down the veil of [click for more]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1695],"tags":[943,80,944],"series":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-30312","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-features","7":"tag-kirby-dick","8":"tag-mpaa","9":"tag-this-film-is-not-yet-rated"},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t