In my own movie viewing habits, I pay little attention to MPAA movie ratings. I either watch a movie because it sounds interesting or I don’t watch it at all. Still, I’m morbidly fascinated with the way the movie industry determines the rating system because I’ll watch two movies with what I consider similar content with two dramatically different ratings. The only real difference might be the studio distributing the film. Academy Award nominated documentary filmmaker, Kirby Dick, took it upon himself to go behind the scenes of the MPAA rating system and attempt to track down who the unlisted movie ratings board members are and get to the bottom of how movies are rated. Along the way he talked with filmmakers who received the NC-17 kiss of death and uncovered some interesting information about the standards (or lack there of) for rating movies. The resulting details are presented in This Film is Not Yet Rated, a film given the NC-17 rating by the board and ultimately released with no rating. I had the great pleasure of talking to Kirby Dick about the film, background on the MPAA rating system and how fair use guidelines came into play in presenting the findings.
Listen to the interview:
