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This topic comprises 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
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Topic: Why is there such a stupid hub-bub over "Bully?"
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-14-2012 02:20 PM
Here is an email we received today from NATO about this issue, breaking it down point by point. The part I "bolded" below is the most important thing, but you can bet Weinstein will not ever publicize that point.
quote:
To: All NATO Members Operating in the U.S.
From: John Fithian
Re: An Important Message about the Rating System
As you have no doubt read, The Weinstein Company (TWC) has orchestrated significant public and media attention to the "R" rating assigned to the movie "Bully". Please consider the following:
- The voluntary rating system was created in the 1960's as an alternative to a growing patch work of local censorship boards, and to replace the outmoded industry "Hays Code". By honoring the voluntary rating system since that time, the industry has prevented further government intervention.
- From time to time particular filmmakers or distributors disagree with a rating applied by the board to a particular movie. That is why the appeals board exists. The appeals board is made up of representatives from distribution and exhibition, among others. And those appeals board members are trained in the details of the ratings rules.
- "Bully" is a documentary focusing on the important issue of child bullying.
- The movie was assigned an "R" rating by the ratings board for language.
- That rating was sustained on appeal.
- The rules and procedures of the rating system do not permit MPAA and NATO to change the rating of the originally submitted version of the movie to a PG-13. We would have to completely abandon the system and its rules to change the rating.
- TWC can achieve a PG-13 rating by submitting a slightly edited version of the movie. Indeed, TWC apparently has an edited version ready, but has not submitted it.
- Instead, TWC has chosen to generate public outcry about the "R" rating in the successful effort to secure significant free media for the movie.
- TWC has also threatened to not support the rating system any more, and to release all its future movies unrated.
- In response to that threat, I sent Harvey Weinstein a letter praising him for releasing the movie "Bully", encouraging him not to release future movies unrated, and letting him know that NATO would encourage exhibitors to treat unrated Weinstein Company films as they do any other unrated film – which in many cases is as if they were rated NC-17.
- TWC released the letter publicly with a press release that substantially misrepresented what the letter said, to create additional free media.
- It is possible that TWC will still submit an edited version of the movie and receive a PG-13 rating. It is also possible that TWC will release "Bully" unrated.
- If TWC releases the movie unrated, I urge NATO members who opt to play it to treat the movie as an "R" rated movie, given the fact that the ratings board assigned the movie that rating.
- The integrity and voluntary nature of the rating system is, to me, more important than any single debate about a rating for a particular movie, even a movie as important as this one.
- Were the MPAA and NATO to ignore our rules because of the merits of this movie, we would become censors in our own right, deciding which movies have merit and which don't. That would be a very dangerous slippery slope.
- Harvey Weinstein knows the rules. TWC released "King's Speech" just one year ago, and encountered the same issue of an "R" rating for language.
- In response to the concerns of TWC and other distributors about the language rules of the rating system, the MPAA conducted a comprehensive survey of American parents on various aspects of the rating system. Overwhelmingly, the parents indicated that movies with language like that contained in "Bully" should be assigned an "R" rating. In other words, contrary to the desire of Harvey Weinstein, parents indicated that the ratings rules in CARA are too weak, not too strong.
- If TWC refuses to submit an edited version of the movie, the "R" rating will stand. If TWC then releases the movie unrated, that release will present a highly public attack on the legitimacy of the rating system.
- The rating system protects the First Amendment freedoms of distributors like Harvey Weinstein, and exhibitors like you. If the industry ignores the rating system, we give policy-makers at the federal and state levels the opening to create legal mandates.
- I urge you to respect the voluntary rating system.
Thank you.
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-14-2012 06:37 PM
This is one thing that really screws with the minds of most customers who get bent out of shape over movie ratings:
M.P.A.A. ratings have no force of law.
Except for a few localities that have formal rules or regulations specifying whether it is an offense to allow those under a certain age to view a given movie that has a given rating, the ratings system, by itself, is little more than a "gentleman's agreement" between movie producers and exhibi tors to follow a set of policies governing who gets admitted to a movie.
It's a really great way to start an argument with somebody who believes that ratings are law. I've had people threaten to call the cops on my for simply saying that... Not for allowing an underage person to see a movie... Not for suggesting that an underage person be admitted to a movie... Merely for stating that movie ratings are not laws.
It happened during the run of "Escape from L.A."
A customer was asking me about the content of the movie and what level of violence was really in the movie. As far as I am concerned, that movie did not deserve the "R" rating. It only got an "R" because Kurt Russel dropped the F-Bomb one time at the end of the movie. There was nothing more violent in the rest of the movie than is seen on television.
When the customer asked me whether her 12 year old son could watch the movie, my answer was to explain the objectionable parts of the movie and say, "It's for his parents to decide." Another customer, within earshot, started spouting off, "That's illegal! I'm going to call the cops!"
It's weird how people get so uptight about movie ratings. Not the movie. The RATING. It's surreal!
Personally, I don't give a fuck how many fucking times somebody says, "fuck," during a fucking movie. It's not my place to tell other people what they should or should not watch. If you want my advice, I'll certainly give it to you and I often volunteer my opinion, unasked, but I would never presume to tell anybody that they can or can not watch a movie because it has an "R" or a "G" rating.
I agree with rating movies. It allows people to make informed decisions and decide whether they want to watch a movie or whether they want to allow their family to watch a movie.
Good thing! Yay, ratings!
What bugs me is that the very people who promoted the ratings system in order to prevent the government from passing restrictive laws which tell people what they can or can not watch are now using their own creation as a political football in order to promote a movie which potentially contains objectionable content.
They threaten to undo the very thing that they created. They threaten to make their own lives more difficult just to promote a fucking movie that shows people saying, "fuck."
It's like a Khafka novel!
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Martin McCaffery
Film God
Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-14-2012 09:12 PM
quote: Mike Blakesley
If the ratings system disappeared, it would literally be milliseconds before a horde of do-gooders started storming D.C. with demands for some kind of laws to keep those horrible moviemakers from poisoning the minds of the children.
And the MPAA could get a backbone and fight to stop them. You don't see the do-gooders passing laws against what's on cable TV which has zero external "enforcement." Apparently the MPAA believes the do gooders are too stupid to figure out the ratings aren't law, and that's why they haven't tried to pass any movie restriction laws (that I know of) in the last 30 years. I guess it's a giant bluff that hasn't been called. (though, as noted above, a lot of people are too stupid to have figured it out).
One thing I've learned about marauding hordes of do gooders, of which there are many here in Alabama, is if you stand up to them, they go away and don't come back.
I would much prefer the MPAA take the position that movies are no more subject to Government review than books, magazines, music, plays or cable television and fight to really protect first amendment rights. Instead they cave in to an wispy threat of potential restriction that really would be a first amendment violation.
If they, as an organization, want to recommend to parents not to let a kid see a movie, that's fine. The Mature rating was good for that. When they phrase it in absolute language - "No one under 17 admitted" (with or without parent), they are doing more than recommending something to parents, and implying the theatres have an enforcement role (while reinforcing a myth of legal authority).
NATO, by saying ratings should be "enforced" is ascribing to the MPAA the power they say they don't want the gov't to exercise -- the power to decide who should be allowed to see movies.
The Ratings are advisories for PARENTS and should be treated as such by NATO, the MPAA and anyone going to a movie. Parents should know what their children go see and decide whether or not they go (and yes, punish them when they do it anyway). In these days of the internet, they can easily find out what any movie is about and access all sorts of reviews and ratings that they trust.
I'm not their mommy, and I shouldn't be expected or requested to enforce suggestions from the motion picture industry which I don't even know their parents agree with. (and which I certainly don't agree).
And, obviously, I don't enforce them. Not that there are lots of kids who want to see foreign language films.
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