Sleaze: A Case for the NC-17 Rating

Every year, it seems, a film is threatened with the dreaded NC-17 rating which restricts the audience of the film to adults only. Why is this rating considered the kiss of death for a film's earning potential? For years distributors have aimed for the magic PG-13 rating which seems to go hand in hand with wads of cash. This sort of thinking is exactly Hollywood's problem in so many areas, using shaky causation to maintain the status quo.

This sort of thinking can be seen with 3D where the conventional wisdom is that to compete with home theaters and pirated films, movies had to become a bigger spectacle. Along came Avatar and post-production 3D and soon it seemed that it was impossible to see a big budget film in 2D. It no longer became possible to discern what was causing the drop in ticket sales, and they certainly have continued to drop: 1.28 billion last year and a recorded drop in each of the last 7 years.

Cinema is, and will always be, a spectacle. For so many of us the movies are an essential part of our lives; with first kisses often playing out in the back of a dark theater, the dinner and a movie first date, and the family outing where everyone can stop arguing about our mundane lives when the previews start and start arguing about the movie they just saw when the credits roll. We want to see good movies. We may go because of smart advertising and the promise of god action, but we come back because of the quality of a movie, something thats been lacking for a long time...

...at least in mainstream popcorn flicks. The romantic comedies of Lubitsch and Preston Sturges and even the lesser efforts of Richard Curtis have been replaced by The Proposal and Valentine's Day. For a brief period of the 60's and 70's money was being made with smart, adult aimed films like Bonnie and Clyde, The Godfather, and A Clockwork Orange. A movie was made for each audience instead of every movie being made for every audience. That is why we need the NC-17, adults should demand adult films. Shame, this year's lone offender, is a moving film that happens to have nudity and adult themes. It's the sort of film that makes sense once you've become an adult because it's about being an adult. I'm tired of watching films about adult teenagers, whose problems are shallow enough to allow for easy resolutions. Let's demand quality. Let's demand adult films.

Bad Education

Top 5 NC-17 (or X) Rated Films:
5. Showgirls
4. Henry and June
3. Bad Education
2. Crash (1996)
1. Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down