This Film Is Not Yet Rated, an expose of the ridiculous movie rating system run by the Motion Picture Association of America, is a much-needed muckraking documentary that rakes the wrong muck. It’s not that director Kirby Dick’s arguments – that the MPAA ratings board favors studio movies over independent ones, that it is much more restrictive of sex than violence, that the rating process itself is arbitrary at best – are wrong. It’s just that these aren’t the reasons that will mobilize those who hold the real power over the MPAA: everyday, paying moviegoers. What’s missing is a discussion of ratings creep, which has allowed violence to gradually increase in studio movies so that PG-13 now means that just about anything goes (or can be dismembered).
