Siskel & Ebert (TV Series)

Hollywood's Outdated Ratings System (1987)

Gene Siskel: Self - Host

Quotes 

• Gene Siskel - Host : In the golden days of Hollywood, sex and violence and language were strictly controlled by a studio-supported code, the Hays Code. In the sixties, however, with the death of the grand old men of Hollywood and the growth of independent producers and changing values in society, individual filmmakers decided to test those limits on sex and violence and language. Fearing government censorship, the film companies, in November '68, to establish a new code, a rating code with the original letters, you have to go way back now in history to remember these: G, M for mature, R, and X. X was probably a bad choice, as it turned out, as porno filmmakers, as Roger mentioned, quickly began adapting it, claiming that their films, remember those ads? "Triple X." Presumably three times as dirty.

  [Roger chuckles] 

  Gene Siskel - Host : But X originally was intended to mean that adults only should attend, and one of the very first films that was rated X, and was released by a major film company was the Oscar-winning best picture of 1969: "Midnight Cowboy".

  [...] 

  Gene Siskel - Host : And the X rating back in 1969 served notice to filmgoers that, here was a film that contained subject material and visuals that were best suited for adults. People went to "Midnight Cowboy", they were eager to see it, they knew it was an adventure, and they knew, hey, this could be rough, but I wanna see it. Now, times would change. "Midnight Cowboy", many years later, would be re-rated R. But at the time, the X rating seemed appropriate. Three years after "Midnight Cowboy" came out, 1972, the very same film company, United Artists, the most progressive major distributor at the time, took another risk by releasing an X rating of one of the greatest films of all time, "Last Tango in Paris", with Marlon Brando playing the grieving husband of a woman who committed suicide.

  [...] 

  Gene Siskel - Host : As with "Midnight Cowboy", I believe a majority of people found the X rating on "Last Tango in Paris" to be entirely appropriate. Indeed, it could be argued that the existence of the X rating back then allowed the film to be released in this country in its purest form, the way the director, Bernardo Bertolucci, intended for it to be made. Unfortunately, as the years wore on, as the makers of explicit sex films exploited X with the "Triple X" and all that stuff, major film companies shied away from the X rating, believed it tainted a film with a dirty label. And as some of these film companies were bought by bigger film companies, none of them wanted their shareholders to say, "You're releasing dirty movies." Also going on at the same time: Nervous nelly theater owners refused to book X rated films. And, frankly, some prudish newspapers and TV and radio stations began refusing to run ads for X rated movies. The result? A combination of forces that has turned the X rating from something valuable into something dreaded. Film companies want nothing hotter than an R, because an X limits their ability to make money. Who destroyed their X rating? A lot of faint-hearted people, from film companies to newspapers to theater owners. In my opinion, it's too bad. The X could've been a badge of distinction, instead it's become a badge of seediness.

• Gene Siskel - Host : And so, we end up now, with what seems to be a double standard with the rating code members. And that is, my suspicion, and Roger's, too, because he said it not too long ago, is that they're easy on films with low aspirations, but hard as nails on a film that is made with passion and intelligence and just happens to be about the psycho-sexual world. I'm thinking of such films as, a fine filmmaker's film, Nicolas Roeg's film "Bad Timing", "A Sensual Obsession", or more recently, the film we were just talking about a segment, Ken Russell's "Crimes of Passion" with Kathleen Turner. The point to be made here is, there IS a double standard between the cheap exploitation film, or the genre action film, and the serious-minded adult entertainment. One gets an R, the other has to fight for an R.

• Gene Siskel - Host : The ratings board people claim that they are not censors. They just make "suggestions": If the filmmakers want an R rating, they have to make cuts. But they don't force them to make those cuts, and that is technically true. But the fact is, with the circle of fear comprised by nervous theater owners, nervous newspaper publishers, TV station and radio owners, and a nervous film industry, movies ARE being edited to conform to an R rating. And that is de facto censorship. And also, I want to point out that the R rating is a rating that we ALL know is very loosely enforced, which means that because of this whole screwed-up system, you've got a lot of kids going into see, on their own, pictures that are pretty rough.