June 23, 2004

• The man is trying to suppress the truth!
• Some of the stuff pointed out in the article sounds pretty unpleasant, but I agree that the R seems a bit arbitrary and extreme. I have never found the board to be especially gifted at rating movies though. The ratings have grown terribly conservative over the years in terms of sex, and lax re: violence. There is a degree to which films like this don't really fit into the ratings formula, and I will be sad if teenagers have trouble getting in. I never had much trouble getting into R movies (excepting one emberassing incident in 8th grade), but I imagine that the theaters will be especially vigilant with this movie given the media attention.
• It's not perfectly germane to the topic, but here's a Hitchens article at Slate slamming the movie. *Sigh* I'm sorry we lost that guy.
• Won't and R rating just make the under-17 crowd want to see it more? /flashback to "Saturday Night Fever" Besides, hasn't Moore been pretty explicit that this film is aimed at undecided voters? If you're old enough to vote, you're old enough to get in to the movie.
• Ambrosia, correct on the age issue re: voting and getting into the movie, but that doesn't change the possiblility that this was a politically motivated decision rather than one about content. Besides, most people don't vote in this country, but even the ones who won't go to the polls will discuss this movie with the ones who do. The more people who see this and discuss it, the more Moore (sorry) will achieve his desired effect.
• This is unfortunate. Obviously I wouldn't want my (hypothetical) child seeing a dead baby being tossed into a truckload of bodies. But I'd want anyone who wanted to see this movie to be allowed access (in virtue of the fact that this violence isn't just arbitrary.) This is why the British 12/15/18 rating system is so much better. Tom Ortenberg, president of Lions Gate Films, had argued to the appeals board that 15- and 16-year-olds should be free to see the film on their own because they could end up in military service in Iraq in the next few years. If teenagers are going to be drafted, they have every right to see what they'll be facing when they eventually are dragged into this mess. Only in America would a young adult be "protected" from "violent and disturbing images" but two years later handed a gun and shipped to Iraq against their will.
• I read that entire long-ass Slate article this morning, and it seems to me Hitchens has some very good points. I obviously haven't seen the movie yet, so I'll reserve my own judgement for the release.
• I didn't mean to imply that the decision wasn't politically motivated. It may well have been. I don't know one way or the other. Not having seen the movie yet, I can't say whether the "R" label is fair or unfair. And, like Bowling for Columbine (also rated "R"), the violence depicted in the movie is real, as opposed to something kids might see in "Jurassic Park 3".
• Yes, the violence is real, just like what we see (and more than likely, our kids see) on the evening news.
• Teens will just get the movie off of BitTorrent anyway.
• My favorite story from Michael Moore is from (I think) Bowling for Columbine where he talks about people writing in about Roger & Me. Teachers were using it in classrooms, etc. and more people wrote in to complain about the skinning of a rabbit on camera than the shooting of a black man by a cop, a few minutes later. In defense of those poor scarred minds, the rabbit skinning is rather graphic, and the shooting is from a distance and not gory at all, but still...
• >What gives? At home you can let the children watch what you want, heck, in Texas you can hand them a beer. Rating -like the French told me, when I questioned aired XXX advertisements uncensored on local TV broadcast; who lets their kids watch TV past 9pm. Which movie in a US theater have you seen that was showed real dead bodies?
• I don't think the future generation has a choice.
• thomcatspike: Though kids don't vote its not as thought they suddenly become politically active when that 18th birthday hits. Many are very active from adolesence onward (and I suppose a few before). Besides which, this movie shouldn't be viewed solely as a vote grab by Moore (though it is one of his stated objectives). It is a look at the President and an administration whose policy choices are felt regardless of age. I have long supported a TV style similar to what you describe as the German model. I like kids just as much as the next guy, but I'm not sure why their sensitivities should trump mine. Especially now that we have the V-Chip here in the states with which parents can regulate with a fairly high degree of specificity what their kids can and cannot watch. The fact that so few use it is hardly an acceptable excuse for not predicating programming decisions on the advantages it offers. Movie ratings are a useful quick guide to the content of a movie and are therefore useful, but it is a system that can be abused (not saying it is here, I don't know, but I think it has been abused when rating films like "The Cooler".)
• I read the Hitchens Slate article, and here is the sum total of the man's logical faculties: "...Al Franken's unintentionally funny Air America [radio] network, to which I gave a couple of interviews in its early days. There, one could hear the reassuring noise of collapsing scenery and tripped-over wires... Why does radio need scenery, Chris? I suppose he also thinks they have a slot called "The Marcel Marceau Hour". He's trying too hard.
• Man, that guy likes his cheeseburgers. In Canada this documentary is rated "14A" which means you have to be fourteen to see it, or with an adult if you are under fourteen. I'm guessing American kids are just bigger pansies than their northern neighbours. I remember watching MTV in the US, and they had a ten minute warning segment before they would ever air Jay-Z's "99 Problems" (where he gets shot in a fairly unbloody manner at the end of the video). On Canada's Muchmusic, they'd just show the clip. But I guess that keeps the violence down, right? Right? :(
• By the way, I forgot to mention during my gibberish that my point is that I don't think the appeals board's decision was political in anyway. I'm pretty sure it's just an American parentalism thing.
• Automatic Consent - Program Admits Unaccompanied Kids Into R-Rated Movies shotsy- the argument is moot when you realize an R rated movie can be seen with a guardian.
• thomcatspike: what is your point?
• "what is your point?" There is no conspiracy here. Just the way the ratings go.
• Thom: I've never suggested there was a conspiracy. I have said that I think the rating system is flawed and I think that this movie is a victim of that. I don't think it is an especially big deal since kids can get in anyway.
• Only in America would a young adult be "protected" from "violent and disturbing images" but two years later handed a gun and shipped to Iraq against their will. Except that this doesn't actually happen in America. Every US soldier is a volunteer, has been since the Vietnam War, and will likely continue to be, since there seems to be little need for more troops, and the last thing the military needs is a large amount of untrained, unmotivated new people, which would be a logistical nightmare. Nor does Congress or the Bush administration seriously want to re-enact the draft, since it would polarize the American electorate in a way that neither side wants. Some people in power like to badny around the *idea* of reinstituting the draft, because it lets slip a bit of that polarization. But no one is seriously considering it. And, as thomcatspike ably obseved, any pre-18 youth who wishes to see the movie can either (most likely and easiest) sneak in or (less likely and far more lame) get their mom to take them. or they can wait the six months and rent it at Blockbuster. Any points made in the film aren't going to unmake themselves prior to the DVD release.
• since there seems to be little need for more troops to clarify: we have large reserves to handle this. It could be that there are region where additional units have been requested and/or called up. What the military doesn't need is conscripts.
• we have large reserves to handle this. Then why have twin bills in the House and Senate (S 89 and HR 163) been formed requesting a draft for 18-26 year olds? Last I heard, they were still active in the armed services committee, although that was admittedly just over a month ago. Can anyone confirm or bring me up to date?
• clarification: fes, I understand that you say no one is *serious* about this draft, but then why would they be introduced and still active?
• Then why have twin bills ... Political stunt.
• I think the bst comeback to the "conscripts are useless line" is the one from Yes, Prime Minister: "what, like the ones who won World War II?"
• Which I would come back with, "No, like the ones that made Vietnam a bigger clusterfuck than it already was. Their children, who've grown up seeing lesson after lesson of the horrors of war, and the unfairness of conscription. Two factors would have to happen in order for conscription to work like it did back then. The war would have to be important and popular, and the coverage of the atrocities of war has to disappear. Without that, conscripts are useless."
• Russian conscripts kicked ass in Afghanistan. Oh, they lost? damn. Well they're kicking ass in Chechnya . They're not? FUCK!
• Federal Election Commision may ban advertisements for 'Fahrenheit 9/11'.