This Film Is Fucking Wonderful

I don't know how to start this... Well, ok, how about this: You should see This Film Is Not Yet Rated.

Seriously. Move it up to the top of your Netflix queue, go see if Blockbuster has it, watch for it in your local independent theaters.

(Thanks to Pete and Laura for recommending this movie to me, by the way...)

It's this really surprising and illuminating documentary about the MPAA and specifically the ratings system that movies go through (you know, that G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17 thing). The secrecy involved, the arbitrary and inconsistent way ratings are handed out, the ties to the movie industry and government lobbies.

Some of my favorite parts:
- The glaringly uneven treatment that the ratings board gives to sex vs. violence. (Lots of violence and killing is ok as long as there isn't blood on-screen, but a glimpse of pubic hair is indecent?)
- In a phone conversation between the head of the ratings board and the director of TFINYR , the ratings board person says (paraphrasing) "We [the ratings board] don't create values, we reflect the values of the culture we live in"... which would mean that if the culture was predominantly racist incestuous pedophiliacs, they would reflect that and defend their decision on "cultural values" grounds?
- Uneven treatment of hetero sex vs. gay sex. Great scene where they split-screen show identical shots from different movies. The camera angle is the same, the amount of clothing is the same, the depicted motion is the same, but if the people on screen are the same sex it gets an NC-17 rating and the hetero scene gets an R rating.
- The "surprising" revelation about industry connections (and presence of christian clergy?!) in the supposedly independent ratings appeal board.
- Interview with Matt Stone about South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut where a scene was replaced and it changed the rating... the part where they find the tape of Cartman's mom in a German scheisse film. Previously the tape was of her fellating a horse. Though nothing was actually shown, talking about bestiality is apparently worse than talking about coprophilia. Horse cocksucking is indecent, but shit-eating is OK? How they came to that conclusion baffles me too.

And a curious devil's advocacy thought about censorship and libel though... if you make a documentary about an organization that is hidden from the public eye (and will not comment or reveal anything about themselves) does that mean you can essentially print/publish anything you want about them? If you make slanderous or libelous statements, the aggrieved party would have to sue you to stop you, and then in court there's the question of proof of whether the statements are true or not (and thus malicious libel, or just reporting the facts), which would reveal the hidden information. So they can't really sue because then they wouldn't be able to keep their secrets... wacky, hunh? I'm not saying that TFINYR is a work of fiction or that it's credibility is in doubt, but the nature of the secret organization means that the investigation of the secrecy itself cannot be verified for accuracy or bias.