Kevin Bacon’s new movie Where the Truth Lies will get an NC-17 rating from the MPAA. But the interesting thing is why. Apparently there’s more to the rating than just the film’s content.
Kevin spoke on the film’s rating this morning on the Howard Stern Radio Show, and about the MPAA appeal process they’ve already gone through. The MPAA gave the film an NC-17 rating, they felt it was unjustified, and so appealed. Now the way the appeals panel works is you go before a 10 member board and plead your case, to see if you can get them to change the rating. According to Bacon, they arrived at the hearing, and the ten member committee was there… but much to his surprise, “there were two other people there,” he explains. Kevin says “they were members of the clergy”, and apparently they had some role in deciding the appeals process.
He doesn’t elaborate on exactly what their influence was over the proceedings, but their mere presence is pretty weird, and frankly a little scary. Where the Truth Lies tackles heavy, sex-oriented material, and the MPAA cites a homosexual encounter at the end of the film as their reason for giving it the rating. Of course if it was straight sex they probably wouldn’t care. But what is the Christian Church doing exercising influence over the MPAA? Are our ratings being set by a religious organization? Is the MPAA secretly run by the clergy? Or is Mr. Footloose just trying to stir up false controversy to promote his otherwise unadvertised indie movie?
Where the Truth Lies will reject the NC-17 rating (as is their right). It’ll now go out unrated, but Kevin says he’s already having trouble getting on the usual celeb-oriented television shows to promote the film because of the NC-17 label, and several he was scheduled on have since cancelled him.
