Building Controversy Over NC-17 : MPAA Opposes Attempt to Turn the New Guideline on Adult Fare Into Law

In Kissimmee, Fla., the city commission tonight will consider making the new NC-17 movie rating a part of the community’s already tough restrictions on adult entertainment, and forbidding children from attending adult-rated movies under any circumstances .

But the Motion Picture Assn. of America, which administers the movie ratings, isn’t happy about the prospect. While the MPAA says it shares the goals of advising parents on guidelines for movies, it doesn’t cotton to having its voluntary--and copyrighted--rating system written into anyone’s law.

The Kissimmee vote is only the latest in a growing number of problems and challenges the MPAA has encountered since September when it introduced NC-17--meaning no children admitted under age 17. The rating replaced the much-maligned, porn-tainted X category.

In Kissimmee, a community of 30,000 not far from Walt Disney World and Universal Tours Florida, the operators of the city’s three movie theaters already have given the city commissioners their assurances that they will not show NC-17-rated fare, let alone sexually explicit movies.

Still, there was a perceived need for revising the city’s restrictions on adult entertainment among three of the five city commissioners and support from spectators at last week’s meeting when the ordinance was first introduced. “We had a houseful of people for something I thought was a simple thing,” said Richard Herring, one of the commissioners who supports a change.

“There was standing-room only,” said Mayor John Pollet, who opposes the ordinance, “but it came from a lot of Southern Baptists who want to restrict it (movie going).”

Like many communities, Kissimmee already has restrictions on adult entertainment. Herring and his allies want to add the phrase “NC-17” to the law, which currently prohibits sexually explicit movies from being shown to children unaccompanied by adults. The change also would make the person who sells the ticket the responsible party. And since NC-17 means no children under 17 without exception, Herring said that the addition of a specific rating to the city’s law would prohibit children from attending--with or without an adult.

“We knew what ‘X’ was,” explained Herring. “So now the movie industry changed the terminology, so we’re updating the terminology in our ordinance.”

Herring said he saw MPAA President Jack Valenti on TV and, “took Mr. Valenti at his word . . . that NC-17 is purely adult entertainment. He looked like a grandfather to me. Very smiley. And I said, ‘Gee, gramps, we’ll take you up on that.’ ”

Mayor Pollet, however, sees the change as pointless. “We haven’t had an X-rated movie as far back as I can remember. . . . If we go too far, we start legislating morals. And that’s not our job.”

To date, 12 movies have been given NC-17 tags--ranging from the critically praised “Henry & June,” distributed by mainstream Hollywood studio Universal Pictures, to such independently distributed, sexually explicit movies as “Centerspread,” “Midnight Woman” and “Blonde Emanuelle in 3-D.”

Next week, the Los Angeles based distributor of “Blonde Emanuelle in 3-D” will screen the uncut, version--formerly known as “Disco Dolls in Hot Skin in 3-D”--for the MPAA’s ratings board. Parliament Films President John Parker said the uncut version, which features former Penthouse magazine centerfold Serena in the title role, is sure to receive an NC-17. “The way I see it, there’s no other option for the MPAA.”

The NC-17 doesn’t bother Parker, however. He feels that the MPAA label will give his movie more of an entree into certain theaters around the country and some video stores, than the old X-rating would.

But it’s exactly this kind of example that has given rise to a variety of anti-NC-17 feelings. One leading film critic--Janet Maslin of the New York Times--questioned the very purpose of the new rating. “The new NC-17 rating has already been recognized as little more than a new way to spell X,” Maslin charged in a recent column.

On that point, Maslin is in agreement with two town councilmen in the Boston suburb of Dedham, where their objections in October persuaded a local theater to pull its booking of the first NC-17-rated movie, “Henry & June,” before it even opened. They complained, in effect, that, “an X by any other name is still an X.”

Only a week ago, a Dallas-Ft. Worth chapter of the American Family Assn. announced that it would have its 2,600 members call local theaters to urge them not to show NC-17 movies. And just after the new rating was announced, the National Council of Churches and the U.S. Catholic Conference issued a statement opposing the rating on the basis that it would make movies that otherwise would have been X-rated appear more acceptable.

Amid these complaints, Valenti last week admitted, “there probably is some confusion in the public’s view” of the adults-only NC-17 rating.” But he predicted, “Over time it will work out just fine.”

Valenti said that the MPAA soon would embark on an education program through the media to remind the public of the intent of the ratings and the definitions of the categories--G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17--which advise parents on suitability of movies for children.

Valenti said the information campaign will attempt to persuade local politicians, parents groups and religious organizations that a voluntary rating system works best to protect free expression and free enterprise, while at the same helping parents to safeguard the interests of children.

In the two months since NC-17 replaced the X, Valenti said, “Only one (studio) film has gone into the (national) marketplace (“Henry & June”) with the NC-17 rating. . . the hard porn stuff is not going into the theaters. Oh, there may be some NC-17 movies, eventually, that are tough, and they may play in, say, 15 theaters out of the 27,000 (nationwide),” he said.

“But the hard porn movie business is virtually extinct.”

He said that most of the films applying for NC-17 are going into the home-video market. “When you can get a (sexually explicit) video for home,” Valenti added, “why would you want to go into town and join the raincoat crowd in some seedy movie theater?”

One of the chief reasons why the MPAA dropped the X rating was to avoid the porn stigma that was attached to it. Most movie theater chains have policies to not show X-rated fare and most publications refuse advertising, leaving filmmakers with serious adult-themed movies that received X ratings, mostly out in the cold when it came to marketing their movies.

Since the ratings system was introduced in 1968, Valenti said, “The X was absconded by nasty, dirty, filthy pictures. There was a time when X ratings were applied to such fine adult movies as ‘Midnight Cowboy’ and ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ ”

But unlike the other MPAA rating symbols, the X was never copyrighted.

Valenti acknowledged earlier criticism from some filmmakers who wanted the MPAA to introduce a new category for “adults,” in addition to the X. “Some people think you should try to make a distinction between hard core and non-hard core. But that’s not something the ratings board should do. Our attorneys advise me that we can’t make a quality judgment and then be able to defend it in court.”

The decision should be made in the marketplace, Valenti said. “Movie exhibitors make this distinction all the time. A theater owner asks himself: ‘Is this a picture I want to play in my theater?’ Once you book an NC-17, you knock out 30% of your business,” Valenti estimated. “All we’re trying to say with this rating is the NC-17 simply means it is an adult film.”

Film critic Gene Siskel, who with partner Roger Ebert had advocated an “adult” rating on their television program, believes the change from X to NC-17 is a “potential improvement. “It will work if it’s used, since there won’t be as much pressure for filmmakers to cut a picture to an R rating.” He predicted that fewer than three films a year from the major studios will even be rated NC-17 during 1991.

“I don’t think the public has focused on the new rating yet,” said Blockbuster Video’s Ron Castell, senior vice president of programming and merchandising. He noted that, so far, there’s no video product out carrying the NC-17.

“The Debbie-doing-Dallas type of movies--we’ve never carried them and we never will,” Castell said. As for the NC-17 rating, Castell said the Florida-based national retailer “will decide on a case-by-case basis on whether to stock films.”

The same holds true for Los Angeles-based Wherehouse Entertainment. Bruce Jesse, vice president of advertising and sales promotion, said the rating will help his company in categorizing films. “But we do not say we will carry each and every NC-17 rating that comes out.”

If the NC-17 issue isn’t causing enough problems, the MPAA is also acting as watchdog in an estimated 350 cases on the state and local levels across the country in which laws are pending to regulate the depiction of violence on screen and impose community standards on the movie business.

“There’s always a lot of activity in an election year, and lately we have seen a move to the right,” said the MPAA’s legislative counsel Gail Markels. “There are a lot of groups out there that are only too willing to tell people what they can or cannot see.”

The case in Kissimmee, Fla., is somewhat different, however. City officials there are trying to write the MPAA ratings into the local law. Markels said the MPAA opposes that as strongly as it opposes content regulations, because the ratings are predicated on being a voluntary system. “The minute you write it into law, it ceases to be voluntary.”

Markels, who attended the Kisimmee commission meeting last week, said “the ratings are not a legal determination. They are intended as a voluntary guide. A (local government) can’t delegate the decision of what people can or cannot see to a private organization like the MPAA.”