When the unsurprising but disappointing news came down yesterday that, indeed, the MPAA slapped Shame with an NC-17 and not what it truly deserves — an R rating — most people were appropriately outraged. A few shrugged and moved on to a new topic. Worse, some actually defended the MPAA’s boneheaded decision, as in, “it’s an appropriate rating.” As if.
There are really two discussions to be had. The first, does Shame deserve an NC-17. To my mind, no, it doesn’t. The second, how will this rating impact the sales of the film and its Oscar chances. It probably won’t affect the sales because Lo! Guess what MPAA and parents? the NC-17 is only going to make teens (yes, teens) fall all over themselves to get a copy of it, which they will probably download — which, they may have already downloaded. So in that way, yeah, all the rating does is make teens, maybe some tweens, download it for free as opposed to paying for it in the theater. Do any of you parents really know what your kids are doing online? Wake up, parents. You have no idea what your teens are doing and seeing. No idea. If you are lax enough with them to let them go to the movies by themselves as teens — as in, “I’m going to let the MPAA and the theaters parent my child for me because I’m too lame to parent them myself” then you probably don’t care enough to think about what they’re doing online. My kid? I decide what she can see and can’t see at the movies and the last thing I pay attention to is the MPAA rating.
Black Swan is a film I still won’t let my 13 year-old see, even though all of her friends have seen it and even though it’s rated R. I also won’t let her see The Exorcist. Again, rated R even though a ten-year-old girl jams a crucifix into her crotch and says you know what to you know Who? The reason? Both films I myself as a parent deem too disturbing. Yes, the girl on girl sex in Black Swan weirds me out enough that I don’t want her to see it. But she’s 13. She’s too young in my mind and you see what a filthy girl I am. So you can imagine. But the decision is mine because I’m the parent. I am certainly not going to go through the trouble to have a kid and then allow the MPAA or the school district or the government to do the job I should be doing: parent my kid, pass values onto my kid, teach morality to my kid. Frankly, I don’t trust government to be collectively smart enough to raise the kind of kid I want to raise — someone who is intelligent and can think for herself.
So, all the rating does is the same thing all of those cute little short skirts they put on Catholic school girls do: fan the flames of desire, my friends.
Before we get to Shame’s Oscar chances in light of this rating, let’s quickly talk about whether it deserves to given such a harsh smack down. What do we actually see? We see Carey Mulligan naked from head to toe. We see Fassbender’s full frontal fixtures. In close up. We see a few suggestive sex scenes. No erections. No bodily fluids being shot across the room. No body openings. Just suggestions of what might be going on. Your imagination does the rest.
Doesn’t Don Draper fingerbang a woman in an episode of Mad Men? He most certainly does. Let’s not even get into what goes on on Criminal Minds on CBS and Law and Order SVU on NBC every week. Oh, I think the last Criminal Minds I saw a man kidnapping young blonde women, tying them up and pouring hydrochloric acid in their eyes. Yeah, good times.
Midnight Cowboy (1969) — Back in the days when the AMPAS and Jon Voight were both a lot more liberal. A different era in so many ways, with new freedoms to indulge and wild frontiers to explore — before a speedy return to civilization and polite society. If anything, it might be argued, it was the Academy’s dalliance with films like Midnight Cowboy and Last Tango in Paris that sealed the fate of future sexual experimentation. Now the Oscars would like to forget they were ever X-curious.
What I get from this list of NC-17 on Wikipedia is that it isn’t only sex that raises the red flag for the MPAA. It is sometimes violence. Although you don’t have to look very far to see how many violent movies are given an easy R rating — and you don’t have to look very far to see how this country allows us (in fact, encourages us) to indulge in our violent impulses. Video games, films, TV shows — they all send the message that violence is not only okay but it is an appropriate outlet for our teenagers; sex is not.
So sex gets buried. It goes underground. It goes into the thriving porn industry. Labeling McQueen’s Shame with an NC-17 sends the message that this is a film about sex in the same way Mr. Goodbar was a film about sex. But of course, these films aren’t about sex at all. They are about the very forces that drive the MPAA and the out-of-touch parents to fear something like this in the first place: desperation, shame, addiction.
Would that the MPAA — and reactionary parents too — all had the collective intelligence to see how a film like this talks seriously about what no one really wants to talk about. It is bringing out into the open a dynamic that exists every single day in America — trust me on this one. I know.
It isn’t just sexual addiction, either. It is the entire industry of sexual addiction that Shame exposes. Porn feeds that addiction because the need is unending. The repression is unending. The hypocrisy, unending. When a population lives in direct contrast to its nature there is nowhere for that impulse to go except to subvert, to go underground, to become something we can’t really understand or control. Anyone ever listen to Dan Savage?
But this tangent is really off topic. Probably what everyone wants to know is whether the NC-17 rating will a
ffect Shame’s Oscar chances. And the answer is, of course it will. Fox Searchlight will have one formidable contender now, and that’s The Descendants and George Clooney. I’m sure Shame and Tree of Life will garner some nominations. But Searchlight’s best and surest contender is the Clooney pic.
So why does the NC-17 rating affect the film’s chances? For some reason, Oscar voters shy away from controversy. Maybe this is changing a bit. Maybe they will come to their senses and nominate Fassbender anyway — who, by the way, gave the performance of the year in Shame.
To get in, Fassbender has to bump one of these actors. I’m going to bet, all things considered, that he somehow makes it in. I just don’t yet know which one to bump.
George Clooney
Jean DuJardin
Brad Pitt
Gary Oldman
Leonardo DiCaprio
And then:
Woody Harrelson
Ryan Gosling
Damien Bichir
I remain horrified by the rating and bored by people who say they knew it was coming and, thus, aren’t appropriately outraged. To quote The Social Network, “this is wrong. This action is wrong.” It is wrong to label it with an NC-17 rating. It does nothing but stigmatize the film and prevent theaters from showing it. It stuffs it into a little box that people think they understand and can control.
Shame is a film about sexual addiction. The dynamics that go into this need to fill oneself up with sexual satisfaction via porn and casual sex encounters is a mostly modern phenomenon. Steve McQueen wrote the film to address this affliction. The ironic part of it is that if parents really want to get their teens to stop spanking the monkey to porn, to stop thinking all women and men can so easily be objectified, to stop using porn and sex to fulfill a true need for intimacy, they can start by understanding where these impulses comes from.
Shame does this beautifully. It starts the discussion. It lifts the veil of hypocrisy and denial. And really only then can we start having real conversations.
But by all means, parents, put your faith in the MPAA. Don’t worry. They’ll protect your kids from the evils of a movie like Shame.
Just saw the Gurus o’ Gold predictions for best actor nominations. Sasha, it’s too bad that you don’t believe that Fassbender can secure that fifth spot, you were pretty passionate about his chances beforehand. Is it more related to the NC-17 rating situation, or rather that between Fassbender and Harrelson, the latter left a more searing impression in your mind?
Just saw the Gurus o’ Gold predictions for best actor nominations. Sasha, it’s too bad that you don’t believe that Fassbender can secure that fifth spot, you were pretty passionate about his chances beforehand. Is it more related to the NC-17 rating situation, or rather that between Fassbender and Harrelson, the latter left a more searing impression in your mind?
Fassbender and Mulligan are, IMO, all but guaranteed nominations. The film’s Box Office will certainly be affected though as many theaters won’t show an NC-17 film, which is ridiculous. I’d love if the demand for this film was so strong that it caused many theaters to re-think their ridiculous policy on NC-17 films. I’m hoping many theaters will cave and show it. It will certainly do gangbusters in the big cities.
You can bet they’d be able to release it in Unrated form on DVD and it will be sold at places like Wal-Mart, which doesn’t make sense. When did theaters get so prudish? Back in 1995 Showgirls was released NC-17 in over 1,300 theaters, and it grossed over 20 Million.
Fassbender and Mulligan are, IMO, all but guaranteed nominations. The film’s Box Office will certainly be affected though as many theaters won’t show an NC-17 film, which is ridiculous. I’d love if the demand for this film was so strong that it caused many theaters to re-think their ridiculous policy on NC-17 films. I’m hoping many theaters will cave and show it. It will certainly do gangbusters in the big cities.
You can bet they’d be able to release it in Unrated form on DVD and it will be sold at places like Wal-Mart, which doesn’t make sense. When did theaters get so prudish? Back in 1995 Showgirls was released NC-17 in over 1,300 theaters, and it grossed over 20 Million.
@Mark: That. Sounds. Like an awesome idea waiting to happen.
So awesome, in fact, that I’ll draft an open letter to help get them started (or if they’ve already started, a small bolster)
P.S. If anyone wants to like this/copy and paste this somewhere, feel free (as long as credit’s given where credit is due :D)
Dear Fox Searchlight Co-Presidents Stephen Gilula & Nancy Utley,
Like most of the admirers of film who have been following the Oscar world on the Internet, I was both outraged when I learned that Steve McQueen’s “Shame”–a film that, despite people objecting to its content, is (in the humble opinion of this writer) a brilliant, psychologically raw character study on one man and the very personal demons that he faces–was handed down with the so-called “scarlet letter” of ratings–an NC-17.
And yet, the ruling did not surprise me. In any given film released in this country, you can show an army of extras being thrown off of a cliff or destroyed by alien robots or killed off by massive CGI natural disasters and get off relatively scott-free, but one cannot show two people engaged in the most basic of human acts without cries of “censorship” and “protecting our youth” left and right.
And yet, it is the very aspect of this dillema–the near-total opposition of on-screen sexual acts as opposed to the near desensitization of violence–that you and Fox Searchlight can help to change with “Shame”.
With a good marketing strategy–which I’m fairly confident that Fox Searchlight’s publicity team is working on as I type–and the hope that you and your studio commit to the ideal of an excellent film–regardless of the obstacles that stand in its way. You can change the perception of NC-17 films as scarlet letters and show the country–and in turn, the rest of the world–that, in respect to ratings and public perception, violence and sex carry equal cultural weight, with neither one being more taboo than the other.
I applaud your decision to embrace this rating. It is my sincere hope that one day, somewhere in the (hopefully) not too distant future, when moviegoers in this country are not as utterly mystified by how human beings procreate as opposed to how humans beings destroy one another, we can have a raw character study to look back upon and credit with pride.
Best regards,
Squirrelman
@Mark: That. Sounds. Like an awesome idea waiting to happen.
So awesome, in fact, that I’ll draft an open letter to help get them started (or if they’ve already started, a small bolster)
P.S. If anyone wants to like this/copy and paste this somewhere, feel free (as long as credit’s given where credit is due :D)
Dear Fox Searchlight Co-Presidents Stephen Gilula & Nancy Utley,
Like most of the admirers of film who have been following the Oscar world on the Internet, I was both outraged when I learned that Steve McQueen’s “Shame”–a film that, despite people objecting to its content, is (in the humble opinion of this writer) a brilliant, psychologically raw character study on one man and the very personal demons that he faces–was handed down with the so-called “scarlet letter” of ratings–an NC-17.
And yet, the ruling did not surprise me. In any given film released in this country, you can show an army of extras being thrown off of a cliff or destroyed by alien robots or killed off by massive CGI natural disasters and get off relatively scott-free, but one cannot show two people engaged in the most basic of human acts without cries of “censorship” and “protecting our youth” left and right.
And yet, it is the very aspect of this dillema–the near-total opposition of on-screen sexual acts as opposed to the near desensitization of violence–that you and Fox Searchlight can help to change with “Shame”.
With a good marketing strategy–which I’m fairly confident that Fox Searchlight’s publicity team is working on as I type–and the hope that you and your studio commit to the ideal of an excellent film–regardless of the obstacles that stand in its way. You can change the perception of NC-17 films as scarlet letters and show the country–and in turn, the rest of the world–that, in respect to ratings and public perception, violence and sex carry equal cultural weight, with neither one being more taboo than the other.
I applaud your decision to embrace this rating. It is my sincere hope that one day, somewhere in the (hopefully) not too distant future, when moviegoers in this country are not as utterly mystified by how human beings procreate as opposed to how humans beings destroy one another, we can have a raw character study to look back upon and credit with pride.
Best regards,
Squirrelman
Leo is going for the Oscar with J Edgar. Leo will not win though, Jean DuJardin will win handily.
Leo is going for the Oscar with J Edgar. Leo will not win though, Jean DuJardin will win handily.
@Bill_the_bear
Yeah, I realized after I posted that it is provincial laws that cover ratings in Canada, not a national system. I live in BC, which falls somehwere between Quebec and Ontario in leniency. I remember when living in Ontario in the 70’s they would outright ban films (Pretty Baby), and we’d go to Montreal to see them. I had my ID checked before being sold a ticket to Clockwork Orange or The Devils or Last Tango. Luckily that has changed; otherwise, TIFF would start with a letter other than “T”!.
Overall, in each Canadian province they are guidelines here that don’t, I think, impact a movie’s ability to advertise. They advise, then let parents do the parenting. And they treat violence pretty much on the same level as sex.
@Bill_the_bear
Yeah, I realized after I posted that it is provincial laws that cover ratings in Canada, not a national system. I live in BC, which falls somehwere between Quebec and Ontario in leniency. I remember when living in Ontario in the 70’s they would outright ban films (Pretty Baby), and we’d go to Montreal to see them. I had my ID checked before being sold a ticket to Clockwork Orange or The Devils or Last Tango. Luckily that has changed; otherwise, TIFF would start with a letter other than “T”!.
Overall, in each Canadian province they are guidelines here that don’t, I think, impact a movie’s ability to advertise. They advise, then let parents do the parenting. And they treat violence pretty much on the same level as sex.
@steve50…it depends on where you are in Canada. Here in Québec, ratings tend to be a bit more liberal than those in Ontario.
Québec’s rating system gives the following ratings: G, 13, 16 & 18. 18 is reserved for real porno films; 16 goes to slasher-type films usually, though some with lots of raw sexuality might get it as well; G and 13 are the most common.
To take a couple of current examples, “Drive” is 13 in Québec, but 18A in Ontario. “The Ides of March” is G in Québec but 14A in Ontario. Last year, “The King’s Speech” was G here in Québec…though maybe they handled the repetitions of the F-word differently in the French-dubbed version. (Still, the original English version was also G.)
“Shame” hasn’t yet been classified here in Québec, so I can’t say what rating it will eventually get.
@steve50…it depends on where you are in Canada. Here in Québec, ratings tend to be a bit more liberal than those in Ontario.
Québec’s rating system gives the following ratings: G, 13, 16 & 18. 18 is reserved for real porno films; 16 goes to slasher-type films usually, though some with lots of raw sexuality might get it as well; G and 13 are the most common.
To take a couple of current examples, “Drive” is 13 in Québec, but 18A in Ontario. “The Ides of March” is G in Québec but 14A in Ontario. Last year, “The King’s Speech” was G here in Québec…though maybe they handled the repetitions of the F-word differently in the French-dubbed version. (Still, the original English version was also G.)
“Shame” hasn’t yet been classified here in Québec, so I can’t say what rating it will eventually get.
That’s a very good point, Ryan. We do occasionally mention the fact that many AMPAS members don’t fill out their ballots personally, or even hand them in, but we rarely discuss just who they are and what that could mean for the race.
Also, @ Stephen Holt
Do you know if the Weinsteins are planning a ratings appeal for My Week with Marilyn? The MPAA rating is for ‘some language’, which would indicate that it might not be an impossible task to reduce the rating to a PG-13. But you make it seem as though there’s more than just some. And would the MPAA let Harvey have his way for two Michelle Williams films in a row, if not two biopics lol…
I can even imagine two or three hundred of the most progressive and even radical Academy members saying to themselves in December 1968 —
“Maybe we couldn’t stop Nixon from getting into the White House, but I’ll be damned sure if I let another thing like Oliver! winning BP happen this year. Where’s my bong and my Oscar ballot?!”
“Midnight Cowboy! yeah, suck on that, Establishment!”
That’s a very good point, Ryan. We do occasionally mention the fact that many AMPAS members don’t fill out their ballots personally, or even hand them in, but we rarely discuss just who they are and what that could mean for the race.
Also, @ Stephen Holt
Do you know if the Weinsteins are planning a ratings appeal for My Week with Marilyn? The MPAA rating is for ‘some language’, which would indicate that it might not be an impossible task to reduce the rating to a PG-13. But you make it seem as though there’s more than just some. And would the MPAA let Harvey have his way for two Michelle Williams films in a row, if not two biopics lol…
I can even imagine two or three hundred of the most progressive and even radical Academy members saying to themselves in December 1968 —
“Maybe we couldn’t stop Nixon from getting into the White House, but I’ll be damned sure if I let another thing like Oliver! winning BP happen this year. Where’s my bong and my Oscar ballot?!”
“Midnight Cowboy! yeah, suck on that, Establishment!”
The Academy of “Midnight Cowboy” time and the Academy of today is not one and the same thing. If anything they’ve gotten MORE conservative. Esp. in areas regarding full frontal male nudity. Sadly. Yes, it’s a double standard for sure, wherein the AMPAS members will gladly stumble and rush to put a screener of “Marcy Marly MM” in their DVD players to watch Elizabeth Olsen get nude over and over again. And she does.
Just as they will plunk the “My Weekend with Marilyn” disc right into their DVD players to see Michelle Williams’ luscious Marilyn hop naked in and out of beds and also pools of water..
And AMPAS is NOT the MPAA…I realize this. But the ratings do effect what the busy (or not so busy) AMPAS members choose to watch. And if its’ something like TONS of full frontal male nudity, they may not watch it. At ALL.
And yes, the MPAA is pretty predictable and I’m sure Fox Searchlight knew this was coming.
I know critically at both film festivals I’ve just attended “Shame” was so packed with press I couldn’t get in! So I STILL haven’t seen it.
I adore Michael Fassbender. And his time will come. And probably soon. They can’t ignore him much longer. But they can and probably WILL ignore him for SHAME, which is a shame…
Meanwhile, there’s plenty of use of the “f” word in “My Weekend with Marilyn” which means it’s clearly on its’ way to an “R” ratings battle, just like “The King’s Speech” was. But that was only one scene. In “Marilyn” it’s used by Sir Laurence Olivier and other distinguished personages allllll the way through the film. Don’t know how Harvey is going to deal with that.
But it’s not like he hasn’t been through this before.
I wonder if Leo is going to live up to the hype of “J. Edgar”…hmmm…and land a nod…hmmm…and George and Brad, IMHO, are the only two locks…
And “Descendants” is sooo depressing…at least I found it so…I’d nominate it. It’s very well done. But BP? I wonder…
We maybe need to stop thinking that the Academy in 1969 hung out and got stoned together and all the voters were grooving on the junkies and male prostitutes.
What easily might have happened
the semi-cool voters went for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid — 23% of the ballots
the old school high-brow voters all fell for Anne of a Thousand Days — 22% of the ballots
the really traditional voters cast their ballots for Hello Dolly! — 22%
maybe a fraction of high-brow eccentrics voted for Z — 8%
Midnight Cowboy didn’t win Best Picture by a landslide. There wasn’t a sea-change in 1970. No suddenly transformed open-minded Academy. Midnight Cowboy won with the same percentage of sophisticated voters the Academy had then, has always had. The same percentage of sophisticated voters it has today: Around 25%
Did 1000 Academy members who gave the Best Picture Oscar to Oliver! in 1969 die before 1970? Did they drop acid? Nope, they just broke off into slightly less silly groups.
If Anne of a Thousand Days had not been around to attract a large slice of traditional voters — Oscar history might look like this:
1969 — BP goes to Oliver!
1970 — BP goes to Hello Dolly!
There will always be those clashing factions warring for supremacy in the ranks, right? That’s how some years The Sound of Music and Gigi prevail. Other years The Godfather just barely beats Cabaret.
^
footnote:
There’s another nascent theory I have to help explain how the Oscar taste can seem to veer around so wildly from year to year. We have reliable reports that as many as 1000 Academy voters don’t cast their ballots at all each year, right?
Maybe in 1969, a lot of the cooler Academy members couldn’t be bothered to focus on the Oscar race in the fall and winter of 1968 . (Maybe they were too busy worrying about Nixon. Who knows?) But then the younger cooler contingent of the Academy was aghast when Oliver! won Best Picture. It maybe made a lot of the new generation feel embarrassed, ashamed. Made them regret that their lack of participation could have let such a thing happen. So all the cooler voters were sure to fill out their ballots the following year. 300 votes, 300 ballots left unmailed in 1968, but determined to be counted the next year — that’s a 5% bump, a big injection of coolness. Enough to propel Midnight Cowboy to the win.
Likewise in 1971 — you know there had to have been hundreds, thousands of older Academy members who felt the Oscar had been dragged into the gutter with a Best Picture winner like Midnight Cowboy. A lot of the older members who never voted would be determined to take back the reins from these young rapscallions who dared besmirch Oscar history with such a nasty film. So all the traditional voters are sure to cast their ballots the following year — to reassert traditional dominance. Another 300 ballots, but this time it’s a 5% extra injection of traditional Oscar taste. And Patton beats M*A*S*H for Best Picture.
Not saying Patton didn’t deserve the win. But you know there were avid supporters of M*A*S*H and Five Easy Pieces who felt dejected that the Academy returned so quickly to predictability. Just when the hipsters thought the Oscars were finally making some daring bold choices — it reverts back to the same old standard template.
Sound familiar?
How many of the more traditional members of the Academy (who neglected to vote in 2008, 2009) finally got fed up with movies like The Departed and No Country for Old Men? Finally decided they wouldn’t forget to fill out their ballots last year and remind us they were still around.
200 or 300 extra ballots like that can swing the pendulum in unpredictable directions. It’s important to weigh the backlash factor in our predictions.
The Academy of “Midnight Cowboy” time and the Academy of today is not one and the same thing. If anything they’ve gotten MORE conservative. Esp. in areas regarding full frontal male nudity. Sadly. Yes, it’s a double standard for sure, wherein the AMPAS members will gladly stumble and rush to put a screener of “Marcy Marly MM” in their DVD players to watch Elizabeth Olsen get nude over and over again. And she does.
Just as they will plunk the “My Weekend with Marilyn” disc right into their DVD players to see Michelle Williams’ luscious Marilyn hop naked in and out of beds and also pools of water..
And AMPAS is NOT the MPAA…I realize this. But the ratings do effect what the busy (or not so busy) AMPAS members choose to watch. And if its’ something like TONS of full frontal male nudity, they may not watch it. At ALL.
And yes, the MPAA is pretty predictable and I’m sure Fox Searchlight knew this was coming.
I know critically at both film festivals I’ve just attended “Shame” was so packed with press I couldn’t get in! So I STILL haven’t seen it.
I adore Michael Fassbender. And his time will come. And probably soon. They can’t ignore him much longer. But they can and probably WILL ignore him for SHAME, which is a shame…
Meanwhile, there’s plenty of use of the “f” word in “My Weekend with Marilyn” which means it’s clearly on its’ way to an “R” ratings battle, just like “The King’s Speech” was. But that was only one scene. In “Marilyn” it’s used by Sir Laurence Olivier and other distinguished personages allllll the way through the film. Don’t know how Harvey is going to deal with that.
But it’s not like he hasn’t been through this before.
I wonder if Leo is going to live up to the hype of “J. Edgar”…hmmm…and land a nod…hmmm…and George and Brad, IMHO, are the only two locks…
And “Descendants” is sooo depressing…at least I found it so…I’d nominate it. It’s very well done. But BP? I wonder…
We maybe need to stop thinking that the Academy in 1969 hung out and got stoned together and all the voters were grooving on the junkies and male prostitutes.
What easily might have happened
the semi-cool voters went for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid — 23% of the ballots
the old school high-brow voters all fell for Anne of a Thousand Days — 22% of the ballots
the really traditional voters cast their ballots for Hello Dolly! — 22%
maybe a fraction of high-brow eccentrics voted for Z — 8%
Midnight Cowboy didn’t win Best Picture by a landslide. There wasn’t a sea-change in 1970. No suddenly transformed open-minded Academy. Midnight Cowboy won with the same percentage of sophisticated voters the Academy had then, has always had. The same percentage of sophisticated voters it has today: Around 25%
Did 1000 Academy members who gave the Best Picture Oscar to Oliver! in 1969 die before 1970? Did they drop acid? Nope, they just broke off into slightly less silly groups.
If Anne of a Thousand Days had not been around to attract a large slice of traditional voters — Oscar history might look like this:
1969 — BP goes to Oliver!
1970 — BP goes to Hello Dolly!
There will always be those clashing factions warring for supremacy in the ranks, right? That’s how some years The Sound of Music and Gigi prevail. Other years The Godfather just barely beats Cabaret.
^
footnote:
There’s another nascent theory I have to help explain how the Oscar taste can seem to veer around so wildly from year to year. We have reliable reports that as many as 1000 Academy voters don’t cast their ballots at all each year, right?
Maybe in 1969, a lot of the cooler Academy members couldn’t be bothered to focus on the Oscar race in the fall and winter of 1968 . (Maybe they were too busy worrying about Nixon. Who knows?) But then the younger cooler contingent of the Academy was aghast when Oliver! won Best Picture. It maybe made a lot of the new generation feel embarrassed, ashamed. Made them regret that their lack of participation could have let such a thing happen. So all the cooler voters were sure to fill out their ballots the following year. 300 votes, 300 ballots left unmailed in 1968, but determined to be counted the next year — that’s a 5% bump, a big injection of coolness. Enough to propel Midnight Cowboy to the win.
Likewise in 1971 — you know there had to have been hundreds, thousands of older Academy members who felt the Oscar had been dragged into the gutter with a Best Picture winner like Midnight Cowboy. A lot of the older members who never voted would be determined to take back the reins from these young rapscallions who dared besmirch Oscar history with such a nasty film. So all the traditional voters are sure to cast their ballots the following year — to reassert traditional dominance. Another 300 ballots, but this time it’s a 5% extra injection of traditional Oscar taste. And Patton beats M*A*S*H for Best Picture.
Not saying Patton didn’t deserve the win. But you know there were avid supporters of M*A*S*H and Five Easy Pieces who felt dejected that the Academy returned so quickly to predictability. Just when the hipsters thought the Oscars were finally making some daring bold choices — it reverts back to the same old standard template.
Sound familiar?
How many of the more traditional members of the Academy (who neglected to vote in 2008, 2009) finally got fed up with movies like The Departed and No Country for Old Men? Finally decided they wouldn’t forget to fill out their ballots last year and remind us they were still around.
200 or 300 extra ballots like that can swing the pendulum in unpredictable directions. It’s important to weigh the backlash factor in our predictions.
@squirrelman: “Is overindulgence in violence considered as taboo in your native countries as the MPAA and the USA consider sex to be?”
Yes. I wouldn’t even call it overindulgence. Both The Thing and Drive are rated “18”, which is the same rating that Shame will receive when it opens in Canada. The most common ratings here are PG(Real Steel) and 14A (Moneyball), measured by the amount/intensity of violence/language/nudity and/or simple adult-oriented content. We have a G rating, also, but it is given to fare such as Dolphin’s Tale.
This is for theatre chains, only. Buying online, such as Amazon.ca, there is no rating imposed or even listed.
@squirrelman: “Is overindulgence in violence considered as taboo in your native countries as the MPAA and the USA consider sex to be?”
Yes. I wouldn’t even call it overindulgence. Both The Thing and Drive are rated “18”, which is the same rating that Shame will receive when it opens in Canada. The most common ratings here are PG(Real Steel) and 14A (Moneyball), measured by the amount/intensity of violence/language/nudity and/or simple adult-oriented content. We have a G rating, also, but it is given to fare such as Dolphin’s Tale.
This is for theatre chains, only. Buying online, such as Amazon.ca, there is no rating imposed or even listed.
Dear FOX Searchlight: this blog entry has almost 100 replies since yesterday. Please make the rating a topic of social conversation. It’s ripe for the picking…
Dear FOX Searchlight: this blog entry has almost 100 replies since yesterday. Please make the rating a topic of social conversation. It’s ripe for the picking…
A Clockwork Orange also managed to get nominations besides Midnight Cowboy. i don’t give a damn about NC-17 rating all i care is that Academy shall grow up and let Shame get its fair share of nominations and wins if it really deserves. Michael Fassbender truly deserves to win so far from the trailer. NC-17 has nothing to be shy about.
A Clockwork Orange also managed to get nominations besides Midnight Cowboy. i don’t give a damn about NC-17 rating all i care is that Academy shall grow up and let Shame get its fair share of nominations and wins if it really deserves. Michael Fassbender truly deserves to win so far from the trailer. NC-17 has nothing to be shy about.