29 X, XXX... What happened to XX?
Description
This article is from the Sex Movies FAQ, by director@gti.net (The Director) with numerous contributions by others.
29 X, XXX... What happened to XX?
Back in the 1960s, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
settled on a standard for rating movies. This rating system was put in
place to keep children out of films "society" felt they should not see.
X rated films were those films meant for people over 18. The MPAA
registered all of their ratings (except X) with the trademark office for
protection.
In 1969, Midnight Cowboy, an X rated film, won the Best Picture Oscar.
(The only one to do so...)
In the early 1970s, porn was going mainstream. Deep Throat was gaining
popularity. However, anyone in their right mind knew that a porn film
would never get anything other than an X rating, so producers just
labeled their films X.
Harris Minter adds:
When the MPAA originated the four ratings (G, M, R, and X), G,
M, & R were copyrighted. However, the 'X' rating was
deliberately left unprotected so that if for whatever reason,
a filmmaker didn't wish to have his work reviewed by the MPAA,
or if it was an 'art' film, he could apply the 'X' to his work
without having to submit it. To an extent, the porn industry
merely used the X rating as it was intended.
From the MPAA's perspective, instead of just using the 'X'
rating, the porn industry appropriated it for themselves. That
created a dilemma - how does one differentiate between the X
applied by the MPAA to a significant film like "Midnight
Cowboy", and the self-imposed X of "Debbie does Dallas"?
After a period of time, the MPAA stopped rating films X because of the
pornographic connotation the X rating had earned. This hurt legitimate
movies like Midnight Cowboy, because newspapers and other periodicals
would no longer advertise X rated fare.
So, in 1991, the MPAA developed NC-17.
In 1991, the MPAA tried to replace the X rating with the NC-17
classification. The same stigma that plagued the X rating, still plagues
the NC-17. This is an unfortunate occurrence, and explains the
prevalence of "unrated" films. Ironically, newspapers will often
advertise an "unrated" film rather than an NC-17 film. I would imagine
that Spanish filmmaker Pedro Aldomovar (a filmmaker who has been
constantly fighting the MPAA board) has a lot to say on this issue. All
of this is sadly ironic, since due to its trademark status, the porn
industry is forbidden to use NC-17 as a self-imposed rating; and most of
us will not enjoy going out to a theatre and seeing the intended adult
material produced by people like David Lynch ("Wild at Heart" was
trimmed to accommodate an "R" rating) or Oliver Stone ("Natural Born
Killers" was toned down considerably to achieve the "R" rating). We will
have to wait for video.
Harris Minter adds:
The 14-18 age group has quite a bit of disposable income and
are a large part of the movie-going public. Either of those
two ratings exclude them from the audience, and therefore hurt
the film's profit potential. The theatre owners and bookers
aren't stupid - they know this, and won't book a film that
won't draw.
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