Credit: Variety
The NC-17 rating has long plagued filmmakers who are trying to do nothing more than present their films the way they want to. The MPAA has long lived by that rating which was almost considered “cinema death” which could force a director to chop their film to bits in order to get the label taken off.
NC-17 is given to films that are considered by the MPAA to not be suitable for those under the age of seventeen whether they are with a legal guardian or not. But the MPAA has long been criticized by parents and social groups for seeing the “R-rating” as being too broad and not strict enough on some films and too lenient on others.
As reported here a while back, the MPAA was thinking of allowing the NC-17 rating back into theatres again. The problem is that many theatres refuse to show films with the rating. NC-17 also limits directors to the amount of advertising they can do for their films. Even if they could find a theatre to show it, they’d have a hard time letting anyone know about it.
MPAA chairman-CEO Dan Glickman has been working diligently to try and give the ratings system a tune up, but he is facing the ordeal of how to make the NC-17 something not to be afraid of. Many people have informally created the term “hard R” to group together films with material that pushes the limit of R- such as Saw and Hostel.
There is no final decision just yet but some of the options being considered are:
~ Creating a rating in between PG-13 and R.
~ Putting a disclaimer before R-rated films advising that they are not suitable for children whatsoever.
~ Creating a brand new rating past R- and having films that are considered worse than R-, but not as bad as NC-17, receive it.
