Shame, the sex addiction drama from director Steve McQueen that wowed audiences at the Telluride, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals (where we somehow managed to miss every single screening), has been officially branded with an NC-17 by the MPAA. The application of the rating, which prohibits anyone under the age of 17 from seeing the film (whether with an adult guardian or not), doesn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who has seen the picture; star Michael Fassbender reportedly spends a healthy percentage of the film’s running time in his birthday suit, and without the artful and careful coverage of his man-parts that is required to get the R. (Co-star Carey Mulligan goes full-frontal as well, but that, of course, is perfectly acceptable within the R rating, so hi double standard, how ya doin.)
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Today marks the 20th anniversary of the MPAA’s most restrictive rating: NC-17. The first NC-17 rating was given on October 5, 1990 to Henry & June, a film about the love triangle between Henry and June Miller and Anaïs Nin back in the ’30s — which is rather fitting as Miller’s 1934 novel Tropic of Cancer faced an obscenity trial when it was first published in the early ’60s. Of course content too sexual or violent for an R rating was released on film long before 1990. Click through for a comprehensive timeline of letter ratings — and the films that they kept people out of.
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Well it is for now, according to The Wrap’s Sharon Waxman, but there’s still plenty of time for Universal to tone things down in time for the July release. Per her post: “Among the objectionable scenes is one in which Bruno — a gay Austrian fashionista played by Baron Cohen — appears to have anal sex with a man on camera. In another, the actor goes on a hunting trip and sneaks naked into the tent of one of the fellow hunters, an unsuspecting non-actor.” Read More »
