Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!mit-eddie!thakur
From: bhanafee@ADS.COM (Brian Hanafee)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.cinema
Subject: Re: NC-17 controversies
Message-ID: <1990Nov29.222832.11821@eddie.mit.edu>
Date: 29 Nov 90 22:28:32 GMT
References: <1990Nov27.205705.5453@eddie.mit.edu> <1990Nov29.062845.10281@eddie.mit.edu> <1990Nov29.193335.3766@eddie.mit.edu>
Sender: thakur@eddie.mit.edu (Manavendra K. Thakur)
Reply-To: bhanafee@ADS.COM (Brian Hanafee)
Followup-To: rec.arts.cinema
Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Mtn. View, CA (415) 960-7300
Lines: 34
Approved: thakur@zerkalo.harvard.edu


In article <1990Nov29.193335.3766@eddie.mit.edu> reiher@onyx.jpl.nasa.gov (Peter Reiher) writes:
>
>In article <1990Nov29.062845.10281@eddie.mit.edu> pauls@tellabs.com (Paul Silver) writes:
>>
>>A third possibility is that the MPAA could refuse to rate the porn
>>film.  Just because a film is submitted for a rating does not mean
>>that the MPAA is required to give it a rating.  It just returns the
>>producer's fee and tells him they will not rate it.  He then is forced
>>to give it an X rating, or try to release it unrated, which now
>>amounts to the same thing.
>
>Do you have any actual knowledge that the MPAA can or would do this?
>Everything I have ever heard about them suggests that their supposed charter
>is to rate any and every film submitted.  The fee is supposedly only to
>cover their costs.  Unless I am much mistaken (always possible), refusing to
>rate a film would signal a major shift in their policy, the sort of shift
>they typically make over Jack Valenti's heavily pummelled body.

This discussion is ignoring a simple solution the MPAA can use to
solve the problem.  If pornographic films are submitted for rating,
the MPAA can simply give them an X rating.  This would leave NC-17 in
the region between R and X.  As I understand it, the X is still a
valid rating that the MPAA can assign; the reason that pornographic
films are able to use it is that it is the only rating that the MPAA
never copyrighted.*

Brian

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* The source for the copyright information is an article in the SJ
Mercury news that I read a few months ago, but I don't remember the
date offhand.  It think it was a Sunday paper, if anyone wants to
check.