Discussing NC-17 is pointless. Not a single studio, big or small, has any interest in such films today. Right now we are seeing R as the new NC-17. Any filmmaker trying to make an R rated film has an uphill battle because the studios want PG-13 to be the end all be all due to money.
Only, I think that the
new NC-17 is not R, but rather
Un-rated. We see examples of this when it comes to DVD releases; on some titles you get both the R-rated version and the Un-rated version...or simply the Un-rated version. Hey, that's fine. Actually, that's an empowering thing about home video...a way to get your more challenging titles out there while also sticking it to
The Man. Not having any delusions about that, though...what makes that possible is not the business folks' interest in sticking it to
The Man, but rather, their interest in making a buck, even if it's only on the small screen.
Short Bus is an excellant example. It is entirely unfair to characterize it as a porno...pornographic yes, but not porno. Is it intended to elicit arousal? Yes, I'm sure it is. Is it
only about eliciting arousal, as in a porno?
Hell no. It is authentic storytelling. It is, in fact, damn good storytelling. What it is is unapologetically
adult. What it is is unapologetically
sex-positive. Granted, these are unpopular sympathies in America...hell, they are around the globe. But what John Cameron Mitchell gave us with
Short Bus was many things. He gave us a love letter to New York City, and I think almost therefore, to America. He gave us an antidote to puritanical, evangelical, neocon America (and beyond). He gave us a sex-positive (and love-positive) portrayal of ordinary (sort of) life.
Anyway, making some point relevant to this discussion, the point I would make is that I'm damn glad that such a film can (or, at least could) still get made and also enjoy some measurable penetration (wink wink) of the market. I'm glad the producers didn't rush to eliminate the unrated version of
Short Bus once it started to enjoy critical acclaim. Will sex-negative people be hostile to films like
Short Bus? Of course. But in a just world, sex-negative folks wouldn't be in charge and nor would they have the power to marginalize any film daring to exist outside of bible belt sensibilities.
Ron Howard is about to make a film version of Steven King's very adult Gunslinger books and it will be PG-13. Were this 1985 or even 1995, it would be an R rated production all the way.
Wow. On the one hand, I think it's cool someone is doing the Dark Tower Series. That's the first I've heard of it. A fellow geek friend of mine and I have been asking why the hell someone hasn't taken that up. On the one hand I'm inclined to piss and moan about the watering down of the material to a PG-13 rating. On the other hand...what the hell. Hollywood is a business. You can't really argue with that. They have a right to be profit driven. It's unfortunate that everything has to be profit driven, but it is a fact of the unfair World we live in. That is to say, it's sad that profit has to be the overriding motivation. And hey...not just a few PG-13 movies have been damn good. If that's what it takes to get them financed, so be it. Doesn't change the suck-factor of the dumbing down process, though. And, yes, it is a matter of dumbing down the material. But you know what? The more things change, the more they stay the same. Same as it ever was.
...and to remove all prints of the earlier version
So, I was hoping someone would set me straight about that. No one has, so I'll just go ahead and address it without the benefit of knowing for sure what that means. If by that they mean that they wish to eliminate all copies of the R-rated version, then, well...that's just creepy.
Oh, I understand that the R-rated version has probably already been pirated by the
Revolution (even if as low-quality recordings purloined from a projection). Fine, it may live on, perhaps, and even be accessible to tenacious seekers. But if the company is really doing away with the R-rated prints of the original...well, as I already wrote, that's pretty damn creepy. I think that that transcends
personal business decision and, I don't know, flirts with, um, oh...I don't know, what's a good antonym for integrity?
Anway, a number of you have pointed out the hypocrisy of the MPAA. We all know it. Someone singled out
Short Bus as something debased and needing to be distributed without a rating... or, more to the point, with an Un-rating. Well, I've already addressed that. I'd also write one word, or, I guess, one phrase. Can you say
torture porn? Have you seen the trailer for the remake of
Spit on Your Grave? It's only one in a long line of the genre, by now. So, movies like
The King's Speech have to get an R-rating. A thoughtful and moving film like
Short Bus has to go without a rating and be lumped in the category of porno, and be marginalized. Meanwhile, torture porn and horror movies in which people routinely get, for example, disemboweled also enjoy a R-rating from the MPAA. Words like
absurdity and
irrational come to mind.
