All Audiences Permitted

I was reading an article a while back about the NC-17 rating in movies. For a long time, films with these ratings have suffered in the box office, because NC-17 seems to have this dark cloud hovering over it. One of the first things that comes to mind when I have talked with people about it is that if a movie is NC-17, it obviously has gratuitous sexual content. That is the thought process because NC-17 just brings that to mind. There is a legitimate reason for that, however. Before 1990, NC-17 was actually the X-rating. However, the pornographic industry has pretty much taken the letter X in, and it is almost always associated with graphic sexual content now in the media. The rating was changed so that this might not be the case in people’s minds. This is why it was replaced with the NC-17 rating. The NC-17 rating is meant to show that a film is intended only for adults, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is because the film is graphically sexual in nature. It could mean that children just wouldn’t understand it because of the complicated subject matter.

The focus film of the article was the movie Shame, starring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan. Michael Fassbender’s character is a sex addict who spirals out of control when his sister moves in and stirs up emotion of his painful past. Metacritic.com, a website that compiles many different film ratings from all around and combines them into an average, gave the film a 72 out of 100. For a total average of compiled reviews, that is pretty good. However, the film only made around $3.7M in the U.S. box office, falling very short of its estimated production budget of roughly $6.5M. It made roughly $8M in foreign box offices, however, keep in mind that the $6.5M is only the estimated production budget. Think about all the money that is spent on Marketing and Distribution via Print and Advertising.

So since it was unsuccessful, that obviously means that it was a bad film, right? Not quite. Success isn’t always measured by quality in the media. Just listen to pop radio. So should the film have taken out some of the graphic content to bring it down to at least an R rating? Some people would say yes, others would say no. For someone whose idea of a great film is one that is lighthearted in nature and tells the viewer everything they want to hear, Shame is probably a disgrace to films everywhere. But to a struggling sex addict who knows the horrors of what deep, painful addiction actually feels like, Shame is probably only a fraction of what it is really like. So, which viewer is right? Should a film censor out material so that everyone can benefit from its message, or should the truth of the subject matter be explored in full detail so that the honesty of it isn’t compromised?

I wish that sexual addiction didn’t exist just as much as the next person. But the fact of the matter is, it does exist, and it destroys lives all the time. I’m very sorry that it has to be this way, but if our idea of conflict is something that doesn’t offend anyone, then that is a problem. And yes, I think this is one of the reasons that Christian films appeal mainly to Christian audiences. The truth is offensive, and I know that when someone calls me out on something that is true, I am often heavily offended. But I soon realize that it is the truth and it needs to change.

My favorite film to date is The Shawshank Redemption, because it explores what it honestly feels and looks like to become desensitized by your surroundings, or as the film calls it, institutionalized. In order to show that honestly, however, the film explores what it feels like to live in prison for life. Things like gang rape, abuse from authority figures, extortion, money laundering, and much more, play a heavy role in setting the stage for the film. It also explores beautiful things like the freeing, redemptive power that music and deep, meaningful friendship can have on a soul. I love this film, however, I don’t believe it would last long in the DVD player of a church bus going on a trip.

Please understand that I do not in any way want to steer someone in the wrong direction with this argument. I am simply asking questions. The movie Up is PG, and it is just as beautiful. The movie Good Night, and Good Luck. is a phenomenal film and it is very much an adult drama, but it is also PG because it deals with public news and reporting rather than sex addiction.

Thank you for reading. Do not be afraid to disagree completely with me, but please feel free to comment.