Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!thakur
From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.cinema
Subject: Re: NC-17 controversies
Message-ID: <1990Nov30.081437.9873@eddie.mit.edu>
Date: 30 Nov 90 08:14:37 GMT
References: <1990Nov27.205705.5453@eddie.mit.edu> <1990Nov29.062845.10281@eddie.mit.edu>
Sender: thakur@eddie.mit.edu (Manavendra K. Thakur)
Reply-To: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper)
Followup-To: rec.arts.cinema
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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Approved: thakur@zerkalo.harvard.edu


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.

I find this unlikely, but for different reasons than Peter Reiher's.
Given that some directors currently have a clause in their contracts
that they deliver an R-rated film, the action of the MPAA of refusing
to rate a film would mean that the MPAA, in effect, can force a
director to violate his contract.  If the MPAA decides they don't like
Spielberg, they just stop rating his films.  (Well, yes, they can do
this now by giving X ratings, but it becomes so much easier.)  If the
MPAA can decide what to rate and what not to rate, I suspect that the
courts would be called in at lightning speed, since the judge in the
latest case has shown himself to be not entirely pleased with the MPAA
system to start with.

Evelyn C. Leeper  |  +1 908-957-2070  |  att!mtgzy!ecl or  ecl@mtgzy.att.com
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. 
                                                            -Edmund Burke