Film Critics vs. MPAA

This past Saturday the National Society of Film Critics, accompanied by the hilarious tagline 'The Truth, Once Every 12 Months,' released their awards for the top 10 films of 2010 as voted by their members. It should come as no surprise to anyone whose eyes have been open for the past few months that many of their awards went in favor of The Social Network. Yet, there is something else of note in their release statement: Critical attacks on the misuse of power.

Most associations spawning from the realm of Hollywood feel more than content with passively presenting to the public their agreed upon 'best' films, before resigning back into the dark corridor of social disconnect from which they emerged. However, it was not enough for the National Society of Film Critics, and for that I applaud them. In their press release they took issue with several MPAA rulings that effected the independent films of 2010, and joined the thousands of film critics who have captiously criticized Iran's jailing of filmmaker Jafar Panahi.

The latter is a well known, highly publicized, and more highly debated issue, but I'm very intrigued with their look at the MPAA. Many of us who critically write about movies pay little heed to the MPAA as a governing body because, honestly, we're old enough that their decisions seldom affect us. Occasionally we scratch our head when a film gets an NC-17, but we prepare ourselves because it means it only means we'll have to go to an even more independent theater than we already were. Yet, the MPAA, regardless of what they like to think about themselves, is a governing body whose decisions are upheld by governments, and are therefore accountable to the ratings they present. The ratings they give determine the public accessibility of a film.

It's far too easy a thing to write off critics as being captious, but here there are some viable issues being presented. The MPAA, in essence, is a judge of relative offensiveness. If they were 'purely informational' as they so claim, then there would be no need for ratings. One would approach the theater, travel from poster to poster, and at the bottom there would be a caption that read "This film contains..." Upon seeing the possibly offensive content they would examine their own personal pros and cons, and make the decision on whether or not that is something they want to seek out. Instead of our modern posters which basically just put the big "R" or "PG-13" and say nothing to the content which the MPAA found objectionable.

“The Tillman Story,” the documentary about the military cover-up of the death of Corporal Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, was similarly rated R for “language.” In the case of that film the offending content is the agitated language of soldiers in combat fearing for their lives.

“A Film Unfinished,” which contains footage taken by the Nazis inside the Warsaw Ghetto, was given an R for “disturbing images of Holocaust atrocities, including graphic nudity.”

In the case of the documentaries “The Tillman Story” and “A Film Unfinished,” this amounts to CARA assigning a rating to reality.

Another good point raised by the Society looks at the MPAA's placing of a rating on 'reality.' Should the MPAA be judges of what reality people may find objectionable? Of course one might argue that these are societal based constrictions that they merely enforce.

We use the term 'graphic' negatively when we refer to sex and violence being presented in a realistic fashion. You hardly ever hear someone online discussing the 'graphic' depiction of feeding birds breadcrumbs or cats milk. Though by definition alone, it qualifies. No, we allow certain impositions to be placed upon various things. Why? Because someone told us to...