A few weeks ago I watched a documentary on Netflix calledhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Film_Is_Not_Yet_Rated. It was about the MPAA film rating organization and how it's a privately owned company and somehow has the authority to rate movies. I know it's not like legal authority, but more of a business contract. Still the whole thing is very confusing to me. They threaten movie companies by saying they'll give them an NC-17 rating if they don't follow the MPAA's rules and do things they suggest like remove certain material from the film for example. Most theaters that aren't privately owned will not show NC-17 movies in their theaters so that ruins a lot of potential profit for films and their creators.

The documentary was actualy really interesting. The MPAA is a very private and secure organization and only people who work there and rate movies are allowed in or near the premisis. The movie maker hired a private investigator to learn everything they could about the MPAA. Turned out the MPAA was lying about a lot of things they told the public. I won't explain everything here but they constantly lied about all the people who worked there and at least half of them had criminal records including sixual offenders and manslaughter convictions. These are the people rating our movies. The MPAA told the public that all the raters are all parents of at least two young children so they only have the best interests in mind. The investigation revealed that some never had kids and others had kids well into their 20s and 30s.

Later in the movie the director actually sent a copy of this documentary to the MPAA for it's rating. They had no idea what this movie was about or what it was investigating until the raters gathered around for the film session.Their reaction was hilarious and the director got a lot of angry and anxious calls and the MPAA eventually gave him an NC-17 rating. He recorded conversations between them and several times when the MPAA called they asked him not to record the conversations. He did anyway and they're played in the movie.


Anyway, even after having viewed the documentary and looked around online a little bit, I'm still quite confused as to how and why the MPAA plays such an important role with movies even though it's privately owned and could potentially only have it's own benefits in mind. I just don't know how it works I guess. I might rewatch the movie when I get a chance. I figured this to be a very interesting topic and worth discussing on here. Hopefully some of you have a better idea of the whole MPAA ratings system and can shed a little more light for me. Or maybe I'm telling you guys something you didn't know. Either way it's worth discussing I think.

That's pretty interesting. I had no idea that they were a privately owned company, certainly sounds a bit fishy. But for all that's wrong with them it seems like they do an adequate rating films.