life is more than a dress rehearsal

the MPAA avatar

oyster and pearl

The rating system of the Motion Pictures Association of America is far above us. They have discovered the ultimate avatar: the Normal American Parent. Under the guise of this avatar, they crop and edit and cut their way through the discourse of the nation to ensure happy, healthy citizens of us all.

Yes, the MPAA shows up on every preview.

This is the bleak (albeit accurate) view of the MPAA and its role in our film culture presented in This Film is Not Yet Rated. Every film that makes it to theatrical audiences must run the gamut of secret voting procedures, obscure objections, blind cuts, and precedent-less appeals. No other organization in the United States (barring our inestimable CIA) could skip away with such egregious power-mongering. While watching it, I became extremely jealous and proud of my college education, in which professors broke through the money-making studio system to bring me films that challenged my perspectives on life, the Universe, and everything. And, while I sat and pondered the truth that money really does make the world go ’round, the world go ’round, and that if there’s money, someone has to stick their hand in it to control the current, I also became increasingly bewildered at the underlying tug-of-war between the Faith and Knowledge.

Faith and Knowledge---Life or Death?

You see, two clergymen serve on the appeals board of the MPAA film ratings committee. Whether voting members of passive observers (even former committee members couldn’t tell which), their presence harkens back to the long struggle in the church (and America, as a larger encasement of said Church) over the issue of discourse. Should everyone have access to all the knowledge they want?—If yes, ’tis a ‘yes’ sprung from the glorious expectation that knowledge contains powers of improvement [that counterbalance any powers of detriment therein]. Should money determine access to knowledge?—If yes, ’tis a ‘yes’ based on the tired assumption that if you have money, you must have had sense enough to earn it and are therefore able to make good decisions [about your soul]. Should no one have access to all knowledge?—If yes, ’tis a ‘yes’ based on the dismal assumption that knowledge corrupts [just as the absolute power that comes along with it].

Do I choose my tree?

Does it really all come down to whether you want to be a glorious, tired, or dismal person? I would like to think that somewhere even deeper than the surface eddies of Money and the tugging tides of Faith and Knowledge there is a priceless pearl hidden: Truth. I say ‘pearl,’ of course, intentionally because it never fails to be a profound metaphor: irritation initiating a response that ultimately yields a beautiful, organic unit of Beauty. Perhaps the MPAA is the grain of sand that, for better or worse, will never be ejected from America’s oyster, and maybe we’ll find the Truth about who we are as people, filmmakers, audiences, and parents from the constant reaction to each asinine rating.