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Ryan Gosling calls MPAA misogynistic over NC-17 rating for Blue Valentine oral-sex scene
By Peter SmithNovember 19th, 2010, 12:00 pmComments (11)
The MPAA has given the drama Blue Valentine an NC-17 rating for a scene in which Ryan Gosling goes down on Michelle Williams. The Weinstein Company is currently appealing the rating, but yesterday Gosling slammed the MPAA for their double standards:
You have to question a cinematic culture which preaches artistic expression, and yet would support a decision that is clearly a product of a patriarchy-dominant society, which tries to control how women are depicted on screen. The MPAA is okay supporting scenes that portray women in scenarios of sexual torture and violence for entertainment purposes, but they are trying to force us to look away from a scene that shows a woman in a sexual scenario, which is both complicit and complex. It's misogynistic in nature to try and control a woman's sexual presentation of self. I consider this an issue that is bigger than this film.
I feel my heterosexuality crumbling in the face of this man's clear-eyed righteousness. Williams added that "the MPAA's decision on Blue Valentine unmasks a taboo in our culture, that an honest portrayal of a relationship is more threatening than a sensationalized one." (I think it also unmasks a taboo in our culture that an honest portrayal of oral sex on a woman is more threatening than an honest portrayal of oral sex on a man, since the latter is a staple of R-rated teen comedy.) Go team Blue Valentine!
Commentarium (11 Comments)
I've often wondered why studios just don't go around the MPAA and release films without ratings. if big chain theaters won't show unrated films then they'll go out of business, so that'll be the end of the MPAA
But everybody would have to do it together, and every movie that doesn't get an unjust NC17 rating has a lot of interest in keeping the current system going.
The MPAA is run by the big studios. This Film is Not Yet Rated is an interesting and infuriating look into the censorship that is the rating system.
Is the MPAA backsliding? I mean...wasn't there a scene like this in "Coming Home" with Jane Fonda and Jon Voight almost 40 years ago?
Vinegar Bend, the MPAA is hardly consistent. They have guidelines about enforcement, but they can ignore them whenever they want.
The Girl Who Played with Fire has a very explicit Girl/Girl oral sex scene, but it is rated R in the US. I guess moaning in Swedish makes it OK?
if studios don't submit to the MPAA rating system they can't get their movies played in theaters and they don't get money for post production. This Film Is Not Yet Rated = the shit.
More to the point, the majority of studios can't get around the MPAA not because the studios run it, but because the studios FOUNDED it. Any studio that has membership in the MPAA is obliged to submit all of its films intended for theatrical release to the ratings board. This has caused some bizarre complications in a few notable cases, wherein films that had originally been sold to studios for distribution had to be bought back by independents because of that requirement; studios that aren't members have the option of releasing unrated films, but in cases like that, wide release is out of the question because of rules that corporate exhibitors may have about unrated or NC-17 films.
The MPAA needs to die.
MPAA is an antiquated institution which serves no purpose. There's no question they're more offended by female pleasure than male pleasure, which is just bizarre.
@Walter: It's not so bizarre when you consider that MPAA is mostly full of antiquated, sexist men who have interests, conscious or not, to repress female sexual pleasure. It's just another instance of institutionalized patriarchy.