NC-17 - No Longer A Stigma?

Lions Gate was slapped with an NC-17 rating recently for the French horror film "High Tension," which it will release in August. Traditionally, that would mean going back to the editing room and emerging with an R-rated film. Besides being a cultural stigma, NC-17 -- no one under 17 admitted -- has always been a handicap in terms of advertising and vid sales.

That might explain why, until Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers" bowed in February, no studio had released an NC-17 film in the last six years.

Suddenly, however, NC-17 films are spilling out into the marketplace. Besides "The Dreamers" and "High Tension," Sony Pictures Classics comes out next month with sexy drama "Young Adam," which features -- quite a bit of -- Ewan McGregor.

It would be a stretch to say that the NC-17 stigma no longer exists. All these movies are limited-release arthouse films, for the most part being distributed by the specialty units of major studios -- not exactly tentpoles. Nonetheless, studios are becoming increasingly emboldened to wear the scarlet NC-17 and are discovering that they are not being punished for it.

John Fithian, president of the National Assn. of Theater Owners, is also in favor of increased acceptance of NC-17. "For the viability of the ratings system, NC-17 needs to be restored as a viable rating," he says, in part because "R has gotten too broad."

The sex vs. violence debate -- i.e., that the MPAA is more lenient about blood than booty -- is as old a saw as the rating system itself, which was instituted in 1968.

Yet with the rise of cable networks like HBO and its fuck-friendly fare, and with R-rated films like "Kill Bill Vol. 1" and "The Passion of the Christ" reaching new levels of blood-splattering violence, the fact that too much skin remains taboo seems all the more ironic.

Perhaps, then, it is a growing intolerance for hypocrisy that is leading Hollywood to take a second look at NC-17.

Tom Bernard, co-prexy of Sony Pictures Classics, says "The Dreamers" was held back because of its rating. "People went in expecting gratuitous sex, and the movie wasn't about that. The sex in the movie fit the story; it wasn't exploitative."

Bernard argues that NC-17 effectively scared away the audience the film was meant to attract, while luring in people who expected something a la "Debbie Does Dallas."

The solution? Bernard is among many who argue the MPAA ratings system is one rating short. He believes that the equivalent of a "hard R" -- somewhere between R and NC-17 -- would allow films the freedom of depicting graphic sexuality and at the same time be considered serious -- as opposed to gratuitously steamy -- pics.

Source: Variety