How the MPPA Discriminates Against Gay Films

How many humps in a sex scene does it take for a film to receive an NC-17 rating? That is the kind of question brought up by Kirby Dick's sometimes funny but always interesting documentary, This Film Is Not Yet Rated. With the help of two lesbian private detectives, Kirby investigated one of the most powerful censors in the United States, the Motion Picture Association of America, and discovered a consistent bias against portraying gay sex onscreen.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated is not solely about gay films, but by including gay clips and discussing the censorship of gay images, it raises issues that are critical to what filmgoers see in gay films.

The NC-17 rating is of great significance to gay films because most theaters will not play films that are given an NC-17 rating, and depictions of same-sex sexuality often lead to such a rating. Filmmakers are left to either play ball with the MPAA by editing their films, or accept a rating that will severely limit their film's theatrical release and the audiences that will see them.

Kimberly Pierce was told that her distributor would not distribute her film, Boys Don't Cry, with the NC-17 rating that the film initially received. One of her chief offenses was lingering too long on a same-sex orgasm. Not surprisingly, the one thing often left on the cutting room floor after going through the NC-17 rating buzz saw is sex — especially if it is gay sex.

If Colin Firth is shown lying on top of Kevin Bacon in a three-way sex scene with a woman (Where the Truth Lies), the movie will be rated NC-17. If Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Mysterious Skin is shown thrusting into a man, the film will be rated NC-17. But if a man is shown thrusting into a woman in the exact same fashion, that might get an R rating. The documentary delivers its strongest punch when it juxtaposes clips from films with gay content with other films that were rated R rather than NC-17.

Not surprisingly, the action that often makes it through the editing room is violence. A comic portrayal of a killer ripping out a silicone breast implant while stabbing a woman to death in a horror movie will get rated an R. The film may even get a PG-13 rating if no blood is shown in the process, although the rating may go back to R if the F-word is said one too many times, or if it is said in reference to sex.

Atom Egoyan, who directed Where the Truth Lies, recounts in This Film Is Not Yet Rated how Joan Graves, chairwoman of the MPAA's ratings board, hinted that his movie would be better off without the gay content, but caught herself by adding that she was not a filmmaker. Egoyan stuck to his guns, but other directors might not, if they want to see their films in the theater.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated raises the question of whether a focus on gay sex affects acceptance of gay people in the United States. If images of gay sex are taboo, does that impact straight people's perceptions of gay people? Could it make straight people more uncomfortable with LGBT people? With the MPAA making decisions not to show most of images of gay sex (even Brokeback Mountain's gay love scenes were very vague), we will never know what effect they may have had.