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NC-17 Anyone?

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  October 21st, 2009 at 05:32 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Let’s ignore for a minute the name of this particular movie lest some of you think I’m after it only for its name or religious connotations.

If I told you a movie is coming out that depicts, on screen, genital mutilation preceding sexual acts with the mutilated genitals, violent pornographic images, etc. even given modern tolerant film standards, wouldn’t you think such a film would get an NC-17 rating?

I mean, given just the first bit of the description above with the mutilation, which involved mutilating a man then a women with sexual acts in between all shown on screen, you’d think an NC-17 rating would be warranted, wouldn’t you?

The film “Anti-Christ” opens this Friday. Forget the world view of the film. Forget the message of the film, even though most critics are at a loss for what the message might be. Just focus on the images, however disgusting they may be.

Why hasn’t the MPAA, the organization that rates movies, given this movie an NC-17 rating? In fact, they have punted and failed to give it any rating, despite it opening in theaters this weekend.

I’m not a naive rube living in Hicksville, despite what some on the left might think. Still, the ratings serve a purpose. The MPAA should not avoid its job on this movie.

There is a petition here you can sign to the MPAA encouraging it to do its job.

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COMMENTS

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  • omarsuarez

    … the MPAA doesn’t rate films that aren’t submitted to them.. They have no power to enforce anything. They provide the rating as a trade service for films that wish to be able to publish their rating. This is like demanding that the dry cleaners clean the shirt that’s sitting on my living room chair.

  • Third Street

    …was that this was a shock news report that North Carolina had experienced such an unexpectedly massive amount of growth this decade, it would be adding four more House seats after the next Census.

    I gotta lay off the politics for a while.

  • omarsuarez

    Most theaters won’t show films that haven’t been MPAA rated, anyway (there are execptions). Which is why almost all producers submit their films for rating. But the MPAA isn’t a regulatory body.

    Unless you’re suggesting there should be a government-operated regulatory agency for film ratings?

    /facetiousness

  • http://slcliberty.blogivists.com randy streu

    “Unrated” means it was not submitted to the MPAA for rating. That’s what the ‘X’ rating used to mean, before it became synonymous with pornography. NC-17 is an actual MPAA rating, but as stated above, won’t be given without the film being submitted.

  • izoneguy

    http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/antichrist-lars-von-trier-104-mins-18-1761087.html

  • bk

    1) Smoking and 2) anything that can remotely be construed as anti-Islam.

  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    … this was my first thought also…. Unless the contention is that it WAS submitted ??? and was decided to be release UR (Un-Rated) version…

    Just to be clear, to further this insertion of Factual process….A film is usually submitted for ratings, the association sends back a preliminary rating with “content” reasons for rating (often included with Rating in many movies/trailers as additional advisory for Parents deciding on whether or not to have children view), and they have the option then to edit and resubmit for a changed final rating. (see the MPAA.org site) If you want to know all about the (Left wing) BS that goes on behind the scenes buy/rent This Film Is Not Yet Rated documentary – and I do recommend seeing that 2006 release.

    Other than wanting to be clear on how the system works… I have no opinion as I have no idea what film is and this free publicity Erick is giving them will only boost ticket sales at the Art-sy (Liberal enclave anti-everything) type theaters that would show it.

  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    as evidence at any Video sales outlet…. UR just means it is a version not given a rating by the MPAA…. Don’t mean to nit-pick, but some won’t get what I think you know and were looking to bring across…

    By way of example….
    American Pie was submitted for Rating, received one, was shown as submitted and with the MPAA rating assigned…. However, it (and as with many other movies, now as a Marketing ploy) then release another version on DVD (for Adult sale only) another (UR) Un-Rated version that is basically just the same film with the clips they either removed (in order to bring it in under whatever rating they wanted, which means they may have had to resubmit with cuts to get desired lower rating) or some additional footage never in it to begin with but then this new version Not Submitted for updated Rating…..

    Minor quibble, just to be clear. Un-Rated may or may not have ever been viewed by the MPAA… The rating can be just rejected and put-out as Un-Rated.

    Since we are belaboring the point.. we may as well nail it down to the absolute bottom ;-)

  • http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

    any sort of patriotism, any christian being placed in a good light.

    and any southerner who is not a hopeless redneck hick, a religious nutjob, or an evil manipulator.

    Oh yeah, and while it is OK to have a black criminal you have to balance it by having the wise old black man with impeccable judgment, high morals, and he has to show the ignorant white hero how to do things.(preferably played by Morgan Freeman.)

  • http://slcliberty.blogivists.com randy streu

    yes, all true, but not basically contradictary to my statement. the ‘unrated’ version was the version that they added stuff to, then did not submit to the mpaa.

    basically, it works the same. but yes.

  • omarsuarez

    …point being that the post is fundamentally flawed due to a lack of understanding of how the ratings process works.

    (Which is the polite way of saying that Mr. Erickson probably should have educated himself on the subject before posting about it.)

  • nessa
  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    and just to focus his point… you know…. and not anywhere like how Hollywood leaves out any/all FACTS regarding stories to give everything they do that wonderful Lefty-bent propaganda effect. If you really want to go there with this discussion?!?!

    Not that Erick needs defending ;-) lol

  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    I was just mad that yo managed to hit enter on your (basically along the same line of thought) as I did on mine, and it therefore landed up furhter down the thread.

    /ribbing
    NOTE FOR LIBERAL VIEWERS: NO, I was NOT serious… I know he did NOT take it personally… Just some levity. Nor was I going in the direction to “challenge” Erick but prompting clarification. We still do not know which was the case as to why this is indeed “UR.” I suspect, it was indeed not submitted and they are going at it this way for the Publicity – which they are unfortunately now getting here so I’ll just toss one last comment… Now Showing: The Invention Of Lying, which more subtlely (some might say) challenges Religion with the Moses and subtle Jesus (joke) reference and (I hope) just hoping we can have a sense of humor – whereas (Erick contends) this one being a direct assault on people of Faith.

    Not for nothing, but since we are on the subject of Religion and Hollywood… As a Catholic, I thought it ridiculous that people picketed “DaVinci Code.” It actually caused some folks to come to the Churches invoking curiousity over the “Divinity” debate between Christian sects. But these things are whole other discussions.

  • http://www.erickerickson.org Erick Erickson

    My understanding is, in fact, that the film was submitted.

  • http://slcliberty.blogivists.com randy streu

    Which is to say, it’s likely they did their job (complete with NC-17) — or are planning on it — if it was in fact submitted. But if the filmmakers didn’t or don’t like the rating, as JLeanard mentioned above,they can simply reject it. Filmmakers have that right.

    An NC-17 rating actually has less chance, by the way, of keeping a film out of theaters than an “Unrated” does. Which is why, though you occasionally find an NC-17 film in the theaters you never find a UR.

    The best way to expend energy here, if you feel you must, is on the local level.

  • http://slcliberty.blogivists.com randy streu

    nt.

  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    omar than go down this road of distraction that was the obvious intent. In my nit-picking his nit-picking was intended to be a “defense” of you… sorry if it was so muddled. The point of contention remains as to the GARBAGE the left wishes to peddle. Go support a good film this w/e and see “Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs” in 3D if you haven’t seen it yet.

  • BillM

    “A Film by Lars Von Trier”

    All you need to know. LVT is a critics darling/enfant terrible in certain hyper-progressive film circles, and while some of his earlier movies had some interesting moments, he hasn’t made anything watchable in years.

    I won’t even bother going into detail. Suffice to say there will almost no interest in this film outside of NYT, kos & Slate, and only a handful of small arthouse theatres & college campuses will show it. As the poster above stated, a tiny few “mainstream” theatres will show the very rare, occasional NC-17 (Henry & June for example), but none will show an unrated. And as others posted above, the “unrated” DVDs are pure marketing gimmicks unrelated to theatrical releases.

    Certainly this film is garbage that shouldn’t exist, but that’s where we are. LOL starring Willem Dafoe with his even worse recent ouvre & Charlotte Gainsbourg. Of course! Who else COULD it “star”? I guess Monica Bellucci wasn’t available.

    I understand the outrage, but trust me on this one. If we ignore it, it really WILL go away, and quickly. The big corps that run Hollywood & the Oscars won’t touch it with a ten-mile pole. Let’s not do anything to bring this to the attention of one extra curious 18 year-old who won’t know any better and will waste $8.

    Speaking of curious, how concerned was everyone here over the explicit violence in Passion Of The Christ & Saving Private Ryan, historically accurate & necessary to the films integrity as it may have been?

  • TiagoSF

    Lefty dem here, saw the movie last week while traveling abroad, having no idea of the content before going into the theater. It alternates between searing tedium and complete disgust. No reedeming value and the story, if there is one, makes no sense. It seems inconceivable anyone would ever have financed the movie after reading the script.

  • marshmom

    makes me disgusted and repulsed. Just another example of why the fabric of our society has become so frazzled.

  • mikefisk

    Everything I have heard about this film makes it sound like one director’s very self-indulgent attempt at personal catharsis, only he’s hoping to dupe the occasional poor soul into paying to witness it.

    I really don’t care that it’s unrated (not to mention the MPAA’s ratings have no enforcement power in law anyway), but I’d point out that the film’s reputation precedes it. It’ll get shown at a few art house places, and that’s about it. This isn’t going to be a national sensation; it’s just the creative equivalent of a grand mal seizure.

    More power to Lars von Trier for making the film, but there’s nothing that seems to indicate that I’d be willing to do him the favor of watching it, so I won’t.

  • naraht

    I think I saw Census Bureau predictions back in 2005 that if the current growth patterns continued that Texas would pick up 4 seats. However some of the more recent estimates have indicated that Texas might only pick up 3. The recession has had the effect of reducing the internal migration from the North to the South, so I expect less change in the number of seats after the 2010 census for each state then the estimates in 2005.

  • Richard Mullins

    when I thought that a point of nessa’s rewrite of F-M 78 was rewriting FM 78 and that didn’t make much sense because that means rewriting a road. NC-17 does sound like a US House district, but that would mean a major migration from the North to get to that.

  • Richard Mullins

    but since one of the Fastest growing counties is in Metro Houston(Fort Bend County), I can see a house seat for them a little more. Harris county has gotten larger even over what it was in 2005.

  • unfatmatt

    I think more people have seen “Willard” than will see this movie. After reading the IMDB plot summary, there’s nothing that I could see that would attract the average movie goer.

  • http://www.lonestarlizard.com/ LoneStarLizard

    I recently watched the film “Observe and Report” with Seth Rogan, which was rated R.. That film was full of full frontal male nudity and it didn’t even receive an NC-17, which left me wondering what a film has to do to get that rating these days.

  • naraht

    There is no question in the numbers that Texas is gaining seats. *Relatively* early estimates were for +4, now it is looking like +3, which is still quite a shift.

    Now we’ll have to see what the redistricting looks like to see how many of those seats end up as D or R.

  • naraht

    Go with James Earl Jones.

  • Richard Mullins

    in other words a good 4 million increase or so(not to bad). Even though migration from other states has slowed down, it didn’t quite stop. BTW, the current Population clock for the US 307,764,891. That broken down between 435 districts is 707,505 average. So that means that no county in the Houston Metro Area outside of Harris will have a district to itself.

  • BillM

    http://www.slate.com/id/2233304/

    “Lars von Trier freely admits in interviews that he makes the same film over and over: a huis clos melodrama in which a passive, vulnerable, often mentally unstable woman is gradually driven crazy, and sometimes killed, by the gaslighting of a sadistic man. There’s nothing wrong with an artist returning obsessively to the same set of themes and images. But von Trier’s fetishistic re-enactment of psychological and physical torture scenarios seems to grow less, not more nuanced with each go-round.”

    “The viewer hovers between genuine shock?whatever your tolerance for on-screen gore, what He and She do to each other’s and their own bodies is sickening to watch?and the eye-rolling resignation one might feel at a teenage son’s gothcore concert. You win, Lars?if I’m the bourgeoisie, consider me ?pat?e.”

    I can certainly see why Dafoe wanted to be in this, but not Gainsbourg, or any other actress of any profile at all. Has to be tweak the bourgeoise/thumb your nose at traditional (esp American) values. What else could it be? She can’t need the money or be out of offers, and LVT is notoriusly hard on actresses (Nicole Kidman wouldn’t work with him again) so there’s not even the “work with zee great artiste” thing.

    And I can’t understand understand why more liberal women don’t see through the “he’s a great artist or pro-choice politician” excuse the clowns always use to skate by on their maltreatment of *individual* women; cf Clinton, Polanski, Packwood…

    Imagine if Mel Gibson made a movie where a lesbian college freshman is gang-raped by some frat boys and it makes her “see the light” so by senior year she’s homecoming queen engaged to the captain of the football team.