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X ratingX ratingPosted Dec 17, 2011 17:51 UTC (Sat) by Baylink (subscriber, #755)In reply to: X rating by giraffedata Parent article: Xxxterm: Surfing like a Vim pro
There were, in fact a few movies that released with an official, MPAA-applied X rating; Henry and June and Midnight Cowboy are the two that come instantly to mind, though I think there were one or two others.
Oh: and Coming Soon was going to get an X, because the teenagers having orgasms in that movie were female, even though the PG-13 rated American Pie was substantially raunchier: it's teenagers were boys.
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X rating Posted Dec 17, 2011 19:26 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] OK, my interest has been piqued and I did some research and found out I was wrong. I found an explanation of MPAA ratings by the father of the rating system himself, Jack Valenti. Valenti says I was right that MPAA invited producers to label a movie X without involving MPAA -- it would be a waste of MPAA's time to review the movie. But he also says that NC-17 is just a renaming of X and makes it clear that MPAA would gladly award an NC-17 rating to hardcore pornography. And confirms that no one can apply the NC-17 label without MPAA explicitly rating the movie that way. That confuses me greatly because I can't see any reason not to let producers self-apply NC-17. Is it the risk that someone would say his movie isn't suitable for children when in fact it is? Henry And June wasn't X. It was the first NC-17 movie. Likewise, Coming Soon must have been on track to be NC-17 rather than X because it was made after X was renamed. Midnight Cowboy was rated X by MPAA, but came out when the rating system was about a year old, before the X stigma had developed. Within a few years, it would be far less likely for anyone to apply the X label to a non-porn film. (And I'm curious as to how many did).
X rating Posted Dec 20, 2011 13:40 UTC (Tue) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] That confuses me greatly because I can't see any reason not to let producers self-apply NC-17. Simple: If only the MPAA can lawfully apply the NC-17 imprimatur to a film or video recording, then the MPAA has absolute control over what it means. The MPAA likes control.
X rating Posted Dec 22, 2011 0:00 UTC (Thu) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] That actually begs the question. I'm asking why the MPAA wants to control the application of NC-17. It suits the MPAA's purposes just fine or better if it doesn't control NC-17. (In Valenti's essay, he emphasizes that the purpose the rating system is limited to giving parents information about the suitability of movies for children).I appreciate MPAA wanting to control in general, but there are millions of irrelevant things the MPAA could control but doesn't; there needs to be a reason.
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