Violence, Sex, and the MPAA

Over spring break, I watched this interesting documentary titled This Film Not Yet Rated. What caught my eye was the fact that I want to go in to the filmmaking business and the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) is an important part of the filmmaking process. These people pretty much decide the fate of a film. Getting an NC-17 rating is almost like a death sentence to a film. What I learned from the documentary was that the board of people who rate movies is kept secret from the public. This personally doesn’t make sense to me. Another aspect that bothers me is that sex in films is given a “worse” rating then violence. Why is this? Graphic violence can be very harmful to children who see it in a film. Take the Saw movies for example, these films receive an R rating, but the violence and the gore in these films are horrific and definitely terrifying to a young child. I’ve read that the movie Blue Valentine (starring Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling) was given an NC-17 rating because of the sexual content included in the films. Why is it that movies with sex get the death sentence rating, while those films with intense violence only get an R? Another area that interested me was the fact that moviegoers don’t know just who these people on the rating board are. What experiences to they have that will make them beneficial to the film rating process? This documentary has led me to want to find out more about these questions.