Plugged In does not review NC-17 movies. A review publication has to draw the line somewhere between PG and the porn industry, and we’ve drawn ours right between R and NC-17.
It seems like a reasonable place to draw it, what with most mainstream theaters refusing to even show NC-17 movies, and keeping them locked away from minors when they decide to make an exception. So it’s quite a bit harder to see these kinds of flicks than it is to waltz into, say, a Thor sequel. And with R-rated movies becoming increasingly hard-core when it comes to content (from obscene language to graphic violence to explicit sexuality), it just doesn’t strike us as needful (or even right) to venture out past the restricted zone.
I’m still fairly certain we won’t suddenly start getting piles of requests from our own readers for us to change our stance on this subject. But not everybody feels the same way about the rating formerly known as X. The French teen coming-of-age drama Blue Is the Warmest Color serves as a current example of a shifting sensibility in our culture about this. It’s about a love affair between two female teens, and the extreme rating comes from its lesbian sex scenes.
No matter. At least one New York City theater showing the film is brushing aside the MPAA’s no-children-under 17 admonition and is opening its doors to teens. The IFC Center says the topics the film deals with are relevant for teens “looking ahead to the emotional challenges and opportunities that adulthood holds.” John Vanco, who is the senior vice president and general manager of the IFC Center, says further, “This is not a movie for young children, but it is our judgment that it is not inappropriate for mature, inquiring teenagers.”
New York Times film critic A.O. Scott agrees, admitting to letting his own 14-year-old daughter watch the film (twice), then piling on with this:
In some ways, because of its tone and [teenage] subject matter … peer pressure, first love, homework, postgraduate plans … Blue is a movie that may be best appreciated by viewers under the NC-17 age cutoff.
Scott concludes his comments with a note that it is our “superstition about images [that] designates it as adults-only viewing.”
Julie Maroh, who wrote the graphic novel on which the film is based, actually doesn’t see eye to eye with Scott, though, describing the film’s sexual couplings as inauthentic and pornographic. She points out that neither of the two stars is actually a lesbian.
And I’ll point out that the film’s graphic sex scenes reportedly stretch out for 15 minutes. But that kind of content is apparently not keeping as many people from seeing such things as before.
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