Blue Valentine: Movie Ratings and their Influence on the Film Industry

A few months before its theatrical release date, Blue Valentine, a critical hit at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, was given an NC-17 rating. The film depicts the blossoming and subsequent deterioration of a relationship, heartbreakingly conveyed by the film’s two stars, Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling. The MPAA struck the film with the rating due to a graphic oral sex scene.

The inherent problem in an NC-17 rating is the stigma it carries. The NC-17 rating significantly decreases box office revenue on account of the disappearance of advertising and the diminishing willingness of adult moviegoers to see a film branded with it. In recent years an important criterion for an NC-17 rating is unsimulated sex.
           
The sex in Blue Valentine is purely simulated.  I think that the director, Derek Cianfrance, purposely chose this. A film with unsimulated sex stops changes the focus of the storyline from one about relationships to one about the sex. The actors, however, approached the film in a very methodical way, and made it their mission to portray everything as real as they possibly could. Thus, the sex scenes are a lot more emotionally graphic than most explicit sex scenes in films.

While an R rating was finally won on appeal, the fact that this movie was even given that NC-17 rating in the first place is extremely problematic. The decision to hit the film with the stigmatic rating reeks of sexism. The scene that apparently decided the NC-17 rating depicts a woman receiving oral sex. This is problematic in and of itself as there certainly are R rated films depicting simulated oral sex on a man. Either the MPAA feels that it has to protect women’s virtue, or else it does not think that women are deserving of sexual pleasure.
 
On a larger scale, the fact that this film was even given the rating initially is troublesome. Ryan Gosling said it best:
 
“You have to question a cinematic culture which preaches artistic expression, and yet would support a decision that is clearly a product of a patriarchy-dominant society, which tries to control how women are depicted on screen. The MPAA is okay supporting scenes that portray women in scenarios of sexual torture and violence for entertainment purposes, but they are trying to force us to look away from a scene that shows a woman in a sexual scenario, which is both complicit and complex. It’s misogynistic in nature to try and control a woman’s sexual presentation of self. I consider this an issue that is bigger than this film.”
 
We have films such as Saw and Hostel, which put women in positions of sexualized violence. This is much more worthy of a revenue decreasing rating than a film depicting an equal sexual relationship between partners. It seems that the MPAA has forgotten that sex is a completely natural occurrence and, more frighteningly, it thinks that it must be censored.
 
I’d also like to question the MPAA’s choice of scene, and propose that possibly the MPAA gave the rating because of an emotionally explicit scene of a near abortion, with the in-film implication that not having the abortion negatively impacted the relationship of the two main characters. This only compounds the sexism of the NC-17 rating, and shows that the MPAA feels it must fully control women’s bodies as depicted in media (which we should remember is important educationally and politically). Finally, this introduces the problems with the NC-17 rating itself. It’s obvious that the rating cannot be applied fairly, and I do believe that when it comes to minors seeing explicit films, it should be up to the parents and the parents alone,and not to any outside administration.  

This all being said, Blue Valentine is a wonderfully poignant film that somehow manages to portray the uplifting qualities of a beginning relationship, while also showing the painful and heartbreaking consequences of neglected love. The film shows that a normal relationship takes a lot of work to maintain, something which young adults should understand and be able to see in media form.
 
Blue Valentine is currently playing at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute. I most definitely recommend seeing it. It stops playing at this theatre next week!