Movie Review: This Film Not Yet Rated

Title: This Film Not Yet Rated
Director: Kirby Dick
2006

Background:
When I first started seeing promotional material for this film, I had slight misgivings. Like many books and movies about censorship, the ads employed the use of a scantily clad lady to invite the viewer to learn more about the MPAA's repressive rating standards.
Yawn.
These images have been rehashed over and over. If you really want to make a statement about censorship and body politics, put a glistening, bare-assed man on the cover. And they did! A friend had reported seeing a male version of the poster, thus restoring my enthusiasm. Atlhough, almost every article about This Film Is Not Yet Rated uses the female version of the poster (and it doesn't come up in a Google image search until page number 3) the Kendall Cinema proudly displayed it's more masculine twin.

Content:
This Film Is Not Yet Rated does an excellent job of explaining the history of the MPAA from the Hayes Code area to today. Most viewers have heard about the MPAA. However, the press they get usually involves fair use issues (there are none apparently) and Digital Rights Management technology. But the MPAA also dictates what we view and how movies get marketed and re-edited. They are the shadowy morality police that make sure the good people of America never see male nudity, female pleasure, homosexuality, or the occasional pubic hair. The members are secret, the rating guidelines nonexistent, and decisions rarely appealed successfully. But this film isn't just a history lesson, it's an adventure. And that's why I love it.

There are the standard documentary components. The history of the MPAA, interviews with filmmakers, clever split screen comparisons between R rated movies and NC-17 rated movies, and fun film facts. But then Kirby ups the ante and a hires a local private investigator to find out who the MPAA's secret raters are. Instead of acting as meaningless comic diversion, the investigation concerning the individual identities of the raters facilitates the much bigger question of why are these decisions are made. Why does the MPAA have this power? Why do they choose to let us see women getting hacked to bits, but not having a realistic orgasm? Why can we see Jason Biggs with his pants off screwing an apple pie, but not Natasha Lyonne masturbate over her nightgown? Why can we see women getting raped, but not men kissing? And who does this benefit, to what purpose does all this serve?

I think that any movie that covers these questions is worth seeing. And a movie that does it exceptionally well is worth dragging all your friends to. This Film Is Not Yet Rated is definitely the later.

Oh and fun fact. The MPAA, the strongest advocates of anti-piracy laws, is in hot water for making unauthorized digital copies of Kirby's movie.