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This Film is Not Yet Rated. Dir. Kirby Dick. Perf. Kirby Dick, Jack Valenti, Kimberly Pierce, Alison Anders, and John Waters. IFC, Netflix, and BBC, 2006. This Film Is Not Yet Rated is an independent documentary film about the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system. It is an in-depth discussion about the current rating system, adopted under Jack Valenti's tenure as president of the MPAA, and attempts to challenge the system as unfair to the artists and filmmakers of independent films. The main argument is that the review board of the MPAA is an unfair representation of the general public and that often times filmmakers receive unfair ratings that cost them millions of dollars in studio funding and box office sales. It shows how an NC-17 rating can be a dreaded rating to receive to filmmakers because it often means that the release of their film is doomed to fail. It also attempts to derive trends in the rating system that implies unfair judgments including: homophobia, female pleasure, and certain sexual movements. Criticizing the reasoning behind these trends, Kirby points out the fact that violence in films is not poorly received by the board and often skates by without scolding. This documentary is an excellent examination of the current rating system and begs the question of whether the MPAA is just a tool for serving the big budget studios rather than protecting the public from inappropriate content.
Lewis, John. Hollywood V. Hardcore: How the Struggle Over Censorship Saved the Modern Film Industry. New York and London: New York UP, 2000. 135-191.
Chapter 4, titled Hollywood v. Soft Core, examines arguably the most influential year of film censorship to date. In this year, MPAA president Jack Valenti issued a press release to stating that a new production code/ move rating system would be put into place. The same system is still used today to rate films. The chapter does a good job of outlining the events of how this code came into place. The author explains how the "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" was denied by the PCA but began production anyway, anticipating that change was to come. It talks about the controversy over the language such as "screw" and "hump the hostess" were debated and the issues Valenti faced with content regulation. In the end of the meeting, Warner Brothers appealed the PCA's preliminary ruling to deny Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and the film was released. Because of the films amazing success, it marked a point in history where the industry was beginning to understand that the Production Code was a dated system. The film was released with a warning stating "for adults only" and ranked third in the box office list in 1966 behind two other mature-themed pictures. This chapter is very useful and entertaining in its explanation of the pressures and challenges that Valenti faced when negotiating the new rating system. It offers a very in depth perspective and takes the reader on a film by film journey of the controversy.
This article gives a fairly good description of the life of Jack Valenti, who arguably had more power over the motion picture industry than anyone who ever lived. Paragraphs 9 through 16 are particularly useful for formulating a perspective on the era in which Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf was released. It explains how there was a compromise in which three out of four vulgarisms were cut. It also gives credit to the film Blowup for using Woolf's momentum to cause its own controversy with brief nudity and sexual themes. Fearing that censorship power might return to the individual states, Valenti acted,” I knew I had to move swiftly, and I did,” he later recalled. “I was determined to free the screen from anything like the Hays Code. But I also emphasized that freedom demanded responsibility.” Some interesting notes are the fact that the movie Gremlins inspired Valenti to add a PG-13 rating to the initial rating system. Also, the X rating was changed to NC-17. The author then touches on one of the downfalls of Valenti's rating system, "distributors have mostly spurned [NC-17 ratings] for commercial reasons, leaving many filmmakers to make wrenching cuts to adult-themed films in pursuit of an R rating." This explains some of the controversy over the rating system that still goes on today. The rest of the article continues to elaborate on his incredible life but is less valuable for examining film censorship.
Gardner, Gerald. The Censorship Papers: Movie Censorship Letters From the Hays Office, 1934 to 7968. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1987. 198-200.This part of Chapter 17, Dramas From Broadway, offers a very informative look at the process of the PCA when reviewing the script of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. It tells of the meeting between Jack L. Warner and chief censor Geoffrey Shurlock. After reading a copy of the play by Edward Albee the censor gave a list of all of the explicatives and phrases that would be considered unacceptable by the PCA, which the chapter lists completely. This is a great example of the strictness of the PCA and its discretion towards strong language and sexual themes. When the film was actually made, many of these phrases are omitted or altered. The chapter goes on to explain how the Warner Brother's film held faithful to the Albee play. It was denied by the PCA and was appealed to the MPAA board. The chapter then lists the reasons why the MPAA decided to release the film after all. The reasons were: The film was not designed to be prurient; Warner Brothers has taken the position that no person under eighteen will be admitted unless accompanied by a parent, and that the exemption does not mean that the floodgates are open for language or other material. This chapter is very useful for getting an inside look at the appeal process of the time and the drastic exceptions made on behalf of who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.