By John Mack Freeman
As anyone who has seen the 2006 documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated can attest (and if you haven’t seen it, you very much should), the MPAA has a lot of problems when it comes to rating movies. Never mind the chilling effect that ratings systems in general can have, the MPAA’s system routinely targets certain kinds of films for harsher ratings than others.
A new film with John Lithgow and Alfred Molina called Love is Strange was recently given an “R” rating by the MPAA, meaning that in most cinemas, children under the age of 17 cannot view the movie without a guardian. The film is about two gay men who have been together for 40 years who have to deal with the stress of losing their home and moving in with family. Why was this film rated R? “Adult language.” Which is really not the reason at all. Tons of films have adult language these days, and they routinely are rated PG-13 or lower. In fact, Queerty compared Love is Strange to another film coming out this week that got a similar rating:
First there’s Sin City: A Dame To Kill For. It features, “nudity, sexual situations and substance abuse. Every woman in it is a stripper, a prostitute or a murderer. There is violence and graphic gore, including one scene of a man having his eye plucked out and another of a man having his fingers broken with a pliers.
To put it bluntly, this is another example of the MPAA singling out LGBT-themed content as being unsuitable for younger ages simply for the fact that it is LGBT-related.
Here is a trailer for the movie that is too hot for children:
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