eXplicit Content: A Discussion of the MPAA Film Rating System and the NC-17 Rating

Wayne Kramer (director, The Cooler (2003))—I remember what happened, I was just going into a meeting and I got a phone call and it was the producer of the film saying 'guess what, we just got an NC-17 from the MPAA' and I went 'Oh sh*t,' and so I said 'Was it for that first scene?' And they said 'No it was because there was a glimpse of Maria's pubic hair in the second scene' and I was just like 'What?!' Maria Bello (actress, The Cooler)—Just a couple of months before, I had gone to see a horror film [Scary Movie] that was rated R. It was a "funny" horror film and in the first 10 minutes a woman gets her fake breasts cut out and there is blood everywhere, and that's what made me so furious to want to go in and fight for my pubic hair. I was like 'Don't tell me. I'm a mother'. Why should that movie get an R and why for seeing my pubic hair did we get an NC-17 when it was this, you know, beautiful moment between two people that had a lot to do with love. Wayne Kramer—You know, by the time we get to the scene they found offense with these people are committed to each other. It's a real love story, it's not promoting promiscuity. It's about the intimacy of their situation, and the power of the camera being on [her] face is what I think caused the MPAA to give that scene an NC-17, but because they couldn't reach inside themselves and realize why it felt so real, I think the next thing they saw was a glimpse of Maria's pubic hair and they thought 'Oh that must be it.' You know. And I don't feel that anyone who saw the uncut version of the film would have gone home and wanted to rape the next woman on the street or feel like they were brain damaged from seeing a woman's pubic hair. I mean I just don't know what the big deal is… Introduction Thanks to the Internet, in this day and age the public has virtually unlimited access to explicit visual material—whether it be pornographic, violent, subversive, or all of the above. Due to the vastness of the Internet it is virtually impossible to truly implement any form of content regulation, and videos far more 'explicit' …