In the last couple of days the likes of The Guardian, Pink News, and several overseas publications have published angry stories about the MPAA (which runs the American film classification system), giving the gay-themed Brit flick Pride the incredibly restrictive ‘NC-17’ rating. The only problem with that? It’s not true.
The film has actually been rated ‘R’, with the reason given being ‘for language and brief sexual content.’ Considering the movie contains a decent amount of cursing and the next rating down in the US, ‘PG-13’, only allows a single use of the ‘F’ word, it’s not surprising it got an ‘R’.
Pride follows a group gay men and lesbians in the 1980s who raise money for striking miners and begin to develop a relationship with the South Wales village that accepts their help.
The NC-17 confusion seems to stem from an Independent article which doesn’t specifically mention the rating, although does give the correct information that the R rating means ‘Pride is considered inappropriate for unaccompanied 16-year-olds’. That description seems to have been misinterpreted by others as meaning it was given the more restrictive NC-17 rating, due to difficulty amongst UK journalists in understanding how the US rating system works and that it’s not completely analogous to the British BBFC system.
The Independent report came complete with a quote from Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, who says, “It is outrageous, knee-jerk homophobia. There’s no significant sex or violence in Pride to justify strong ratings. The American classification board seems to automatically view any film with even the mildest gay content as unfit for people under 17.”
However while it is often true that the MPAA can be exceedingly harsh with gay material, in this case Pride would have been given an R rating whether it was about gay people or not. Giving the film an NC-17 rating would have been ridiculously extreme, considering it’s usually reserved for film with massive amounts of sadistic violence or explicit sex, but due to the (admittedly overzealous) way the MPAA handles swearing, the R rating was to be expected.
NC-17 was brought in during the the early 90s to replace the X rating, with the hope it would allow a space for truly adult entertainment that wouldn’t be tarnished with that pornographic reputation ‘X’ had come to imply. However it never worked and even now most cinema chains refuse to screen NC-17 movies and the majority of mainstream media won’t even accept adverts for them, as it’s normally considered these film will be extreme. Cinemas showing films with that rating are not supposed to allow anyone 17 or under to attend.
R meanwhile means those under 18 can see the film as long as they are accompanied by an adult. Although most British people would think this means it’s the same as an 18 British certificate, in reality most films rated both 15 and 18 in Britain would get an R rating in the US.
As a result you could actually argue the US has been more lenient that the UK, as in Britain nobody under 15 can see Pride at all, while in America, if an adult wishes to accompany a minor to watch the uplifting feel-good movie, they can.
In the past the MPAA’s judgement over gay content in films has been brought into question over the likes of Love Is Strange, which was given an ‘R’ rating despite having no sex, and the teen comedy GBF (Gay Best Friend), which got an ‘R’ even though director Darren Stein was keen to point out that it didn’t have “a single F-bomb, hint of nudity or violence in the film”.
The secretive ratings organisation, which won’t say who rates the movies (other than it’s known religious representatives are included on the judging panel), does need massive reform and needs to be far less prudish about bad language, sex and homosexuality, but as Pride got the rating it would have done irrespective of the sexuality of its characters, it’s the wrong fight to pick.
Rated R actually means under 17 required by parent or guardian 21 or older. Originally 16.
NC-17 means no one 17 and under admitted. Originally was under 17 but changed to 18 in 1996.