Don't get me wrong. I actually don't have a problem with films being rated for their appropriateness for viewing by children. Our culture is increasingly vulgar, coarse, and sexualized and I do empathize with parents trying to control what their children watch. (Though I do find it interesting how few parents actually use the parental control chip installed in all televisions with great fanfare back in the 1990s.) What I am greatly bothered by, however, is the complete lack of accountability involved in the MPAA's system. For an organization exerting such a powerful control over the popular culture, they have to tell no one who makes these actual decisions, nor how they arrive at them, or what standards they use. The word subjective doesn't begin to describe it.
In fact, TFINYR not only finds out who is making the decisions (purportedly average parents with children though not always the case), but how the MPAA routinely violates their own rules and by all appearances are actually doing the major studios bidding. TFINYR also shows how blatantly the MPAA discriminates against gay and lesbian films. Dick plays sexual sequences from films with gay and straight themes side-by-side and then explains how the gay film either had to be cut or accept an NC-17 rating (death at the box office) while the straight films get by with an R. It truly is appalling, as is the arrogance demonstrated by the MPAA's director Joan Graves who comes off like a modern day Nanny No No.
Watch this film and educate yourself about who decides what you see, and go here to sign Kirby Dick's petition to reform the MPAA.
NOW IF ONLY SAME-SEX MARRIAGE WOULD CROSS THE POND, TOO!
We've been importing goods from England ever since they sent us their religious wackos four hundred years ago. (Personally, I think Australia got the better deal with the convicts.) Fortunately, the quality of what they send us has improved since then. When it comes to the telly, the past couple of years has brought both the good and the bad from Britain. While both The Office and Coupling were laugh-out-loud funny in the U.K., only The Office made a successful translation. Now comes word that two more Brit hits are destined for the US.
The riskier of the two would appear to be Little Britain, the wacky sitcom set in a Welsh village loaded with eccentrics. Among those eccentrics are a number of gay folks including one who may or may not be having an affair with the British Prime Minister. HBO has announced they're doing a US version of the show that will be set in a small town in the southern US. I can't say how grateful I am that HBO is doing this and not one of the broadcast networks. With HBO at the helm, not only should the show retain its quirky sensibility, but more importantly it should keep its gay characters. But I hope it doesn't air until after Bush is out of office as I simply couldn't handle seeing Bush in a gay relationship.
Also coming to US shores is the BBC's hit nighttime soap opera Footballers' Wives. ABC has reportedly bought the rights to do the US version and openly gay producer/writer Marco Pennette who did the sitcom Crumbs will supposedly helm. While this show seems the safer bet--lots of beautiful people living in beautiful houses having beautiful sex--it's also not exactly the freshest thing in the world. (On the other hand, how many gazillions of the exact same hamburger has McDonald's sold?) I would've bet my last dollar that the Yank edition would lose the bisexual football captain who gets it on with a teammate, but with Pennette producing there might be a chance the storyline will remain (but I doubt the same can be said for the plentiful male nudity in the UK version).
As if that isn't enough of a UK invasion, the BBC drama Bad Girls is also coming to America thanks to FX. Bad Girls, set in a prison, might mostly appeal to lesbians--at least for the first few seasons. Eventually, a gay prison warden joins the show and becomes rather pivotal. Let's just hope the folks from Rescue Me aren't involved in the adaptation!
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