By The Weinstein Company is getting a team of lawyers together to challenge the MPAA’s ratings of The King’s Speech and Blue Valentine. Both films, considered by Collider to be “serious awards contenders,†have received, according to the Weinstein’s, inappropriately-high ratings, with King’s Speech receiving an R for language, specifically repeated use of the “f-word,†and Blue Valentine receiving the box-office poison that is an NC-17 for a graphic, intense sex scene between leads Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams.
In the case of King’s Speech, the Weinstein’s rationale is, on top of the British Board of Film Classification rating the film “12Aâ€, which is about PG-13, on the grounds that the word in question is used without any aggressive or sexual sense, instead used in a therapy scene where a stuttering character uses the word to help curb his speech problems. That said, the good ol’ MPAA has a hard-set rule where, if a film uses the “f-word†more than four times, it’s an automatic R. More below the jump.
The Weinstein Company is getting a team of lawyers together to challenge the MPAA’s ratings of The King’s Speech and Blue Valentine. Both films, considered by Collider to be “serious awards contenders,” have received, according to the Weinstein’s, inappropriately-high ratings, with King’s Speech receiving an R for language, specifically repeated use of the “f-word,” and Blue Valentine receiving the box-office poison that is an NC-17 for a graphic, intense sex scene between leads Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams.
In the case of King’s Speech, the Weinstein’s rationale is, on top of the British Board of Film Classification rating the film “12A”, which is about PG-13, on the grounds that the word in question is used without any aggressive or sexual sense, instead used in a therapy scene where a stuttering character uses the word to help curb his speech problems. That said, the good ol’ MPAA has a hard-set rule where, if a film uses the “f-word” more than four times, it’s an automatic R. More below the jump.{{page_break}}
Blue Valentine, however, is causing the larger stink. The sex scene in question is the only one in the film, and the entire point of the scene is that the two characters, stuck in a loveless marriage, are trying uncomfortable to use sex as a means to jumpstart the relationship. In the press release from the Weinsteins, both Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams denounce the MPAA, calling it everything from “mysoginistic” to claiming that “an honest portrayal of a relationship is more threatening than a sensationalized one.”
The MPAA has long been an incredibly hypocritical organization, slapping harsh ratings on films for sex far more often than it does for extreme violent content. Brutally honest, important films like Requiem for a Dream are tossed in the garbage with an NC-17 while Hostel has a chick’s eye get cut out, and it escapes with an R. Blue Valentine does not depict a “hardcore” sex sequence; it is merely emotionally honest and, as such, absolutely devastating. The King’s Speech is just another example of people making a pointless fuss over words. There’s no violence or nudity in King’s Speech, but someone says f*ck too many times, and that’s enough to get it an R. I continue to be absolutely disgusted by the MPAA.
[Via Collider]