The modern movie ratings system was put in place by the Motion Picture Association of America in 1968 for parents to protect children under 18 from ultraviolent or sexually explicit material. Since 1968, avant-garde leftists have been trying to knock this voluntary system down.
The most recent example came with the raging ten-minute lesbian-sex scene that wowed the Cannes Film Festival (and won their Golden Palm) in "Blue Is the Warmest Color." The IFC Center in New York's Greenwich Village decided to shred the NC-17 rating for this movie because "it is our judgment that it is appropriate for mature, inquiring teenagers who are looking ahead to the emotional challenges and opportunities that adulthood holds."
One might ask how exactly the IFC Center draws a line at how to admit only the "mature, inquiring" teenagers? Certainly, 99.9 percent of teenagers are "looking ahead to the emotional challenges and opportunities" of sexual activity.
What
will they see if they enter? From Cannes, Vulture magazine reported
"intensely erotic, incredibly realistic, quite lengthy, and almost
certainly unsimulated sex scenes," one lasting ten minutes. "Walkouts
began around minute nine. That turned into spontaneous applause (and
relieved laughter) when the women climaxed and finished a minute later."
In a YouTube video, lesbians were asked what they thought of the sex scenes. One joked it seemed like an informercial for a kitchen product: "It can chop, it can slice, it can dice, it can puree, it can eat out your [rectum].'"
This is hard-core pornography, surrounded by a European "art" flick.
But "the MPAA rating is a voluntary guideline that we as a theater are not obligated to enforce," proclaimed the IFC Center in a statement. "In this case we feel it is unnecessarily restrictive and we will indeed admit high-school-age patrons to screenings of this perceptive and moving film at the IFC Center."
Don't overlook the profit motive: they're showing the film nine times a day at the IFC Center...because this "transgressive" and "revelatory" love story just happens to be made by IFC Films. Notice they aren't handing out free tickets to their porn movie.
In an interview in The New York Times, IFC Center general manager John Vanco insisted the ratings were too starchy for Greenwich Village: "It means that a 17-year-old freshman at New York University could not see the film, and we disagree about how much protection teens need from the content of this film in particular."
This isn't just about New York. Shred the ratings there, and what hip city follows suit first?
In case you think these leftists would prefer complete ratings anarchy for young people, think again. Last year, lobbyists wrote in the journal Pediatrics that any scenes of smoking should earn an automatic "R" rating. The new feminist trend comes from Sweden, where the Swedish Film Institute has endorsed a new trend in that leftist country's most sophisticated theaters.
To get an "A" rating, a movie must pass the so-called Bechdel test - named for American lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel, who created a feminist standard in her comic strip "Dykes to Watch Out For" in 1985. A movie "must have at least two named female characters who talk to each other about something other than a man."
In an AP story, one Swedish commissar announced "The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, all Star Wars movies, `The Social Network,' `Pulp Fiction' and all but one of the Harry Potter movies fail this test." In Beverly Hills, AP found actress Jada Pinkett Smith to boost it: "A feminist ratings system? That's so interesting! I say, hey, let's see if it works!"
An American feminist group called The Representation Project wants this rating brought to the United States. Jennifer Siebel Newsom sent a mass e-mail insisting "Let's spread the news and discuss this step forward with everyone we know - including our local theaters! Ask them to consider implementing the `Bechdel test' or write a letter to a Hollywood studio executive expressing your desire to see more films that value women and girls. Let's use Sweden's progress as motivation to continue to transform the entertainment industry and our own culture!"
Using this lesbian-feminist test, "Blue Is the Warmest Color" can be transformed from an NC-17 into a some kind of "A-plus." These women were too engaged in hard-core sex with each other to even think about discussing a man.