Narc of the matinee.

• Author: Hawley, Kerry
• Position: Conversation with Kirby Dick of Motion Picture Association of America - Interview

For nearly four decades, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has sold its ratings system--that G through NC-17 shorthand for vice and violence--as a way to guide parents and keep government scolds a safe distance from Hollywood Hills. But according to director Kirby Dick and a bevy of film mavens he interviews in his expose of the studios' lobbying arm, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, the MPAA has also--for the good of the children--placed a stranglehold on what the rest of America is watching.

In Dick's telling, the MPAA'S raters wield enormous power, capable of killing an independent film's prospects with an NC-17 rating or letting a studio flick ride with an R. The MPAA emerges from Dick's film as a system stacked against the maverick auteur, hostile to the creative process, and conducive to bland homogeneity. A long version of this conversation is online at reason.com/links/links091506.shtml.

Q: Doesn't the MPAA's obsession with sex just reflect the culture to which it is providing these ratings?

A: I don't think the MPAA's job is to reflect the culture.

A: I think the MPAA'S job is to inform parents. One cannot reflect culture from a uniform position. It's a very varied culture that we live in.

Q: Is there one film that stands out as having been unfairly targeted?

A: But I'm a Cheerleader. This was a teen comedy, a very sweet story, a [lesbian] love story. The sex is so nonexplicit that it's kind of surprising, given the story. And yet that was given an NC-17 rating. That's a clear case of homophobic bias...