[Infowarrior] - "This Movie Is Not Yet Rated"

[Richard Forno]

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2006/08/31/this_film_is/print.html

"This Movie Is Not Yet Rated" pulls back the curtain on the secretive MPAA
movie ratings board, moral "experts" determined to protect little Johnny
from pubic hair and bad language.

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The ratings board, conceived in 1968 by Valenti, is a group of 10 to 12
individuals employed full-time by the MPAA, each of whom serves for a term
of several years. The identity of these individuals is kept secret, "to
protect them from influence," Valenti has said. But according to MPAA rules,
they are always parents, or people who have raised children. In stock
footage used in the film, Valenti intones that they're "neither gods nor
fools," although they throw their weight around like the former and
collectively

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s if her ferreting out of the ratings board members weren't enough, Becky
also uncovered the makeup of the MPAA appeals board, a separate group whose
identities are also kept secret. The appeals board is the group a filmmaker
must submit a film to if unhappy with the rating granted by the ratings
board. And as Dick shows us, the appeals guys are an even more insidious
bunch of operators than the ratings crew: They include a buyer for Regal
Cinemas, a vice-president of sales for Sony Pictures, the CEO of Fox
Searchlight, and vice-presidents from both Landmark Theaters and Loews, as
well as two representatives of religious groups, one Catholic and one
Episcopalian. That means if your film doesn't survive the MPAA's moms and
pops, those self-appointed guardians of our moral standards, you're really
in trouble, because then you have to go up against the suits and the
cassocks. In other words, this is a case of big business and organized
religion putting their heads together to render a moral judgment on a
filmmaker's work -- a judgment that could affect how much money a movie
makes, or whether it even gets released at all. That's a nightmare at worst,
and at best the punch line to a very bad joke.