Why are NC-17 movies still a problem for theaters?

Well I decided to check out Showgirls in it's entirety, and after watching it, why was the movie rated NC-17? I mean sure it has sex and nudity in it but what makes it worse than other movies that do such as Basic Instinct or Body of Evidence for example? How is this one going further than other movies?

You asked a question and managed to answer it in a single sentence.



Because of the violent, and graphic, rape scene... which is followed up by a violent and graphic revenge scene.

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Oh okay. Do you think that the NC-17 rating wouldn't have gotten such a bad rep, if the MPAA did not advertise it as a replacement for the X rating? Like if they just advertised it as a new rating, instead of an X replacement, cause then people wouldn't associate the NC-17 rating with porn then maybe?

They should just have General and Restricted. Merging PG into the General rating makes sense since from a cinematic/television standpoint kids and young adults are much more desensitized compared to the past. Broaden Restricted to mean just that, disallowing anyone not 17 from seeing it. Accompanied by a parent is ludicrous because 5 year olds shouldn't have any ability to see The Devils Rejects.

No idea tbh, I'm in the UK.
We only have U, PG, 12, 15, and 18.


X Rated and NC-17 to me, always sounded odd.
Like, in the UK it'd be like having U, PG, 12, 15, 18 and Extrasuperduper18.

Just checked the wiki... X Rated no longer exists.


MPAA ratings are:
G - All ages admitted. Nothing that would offend parents for viewing by children
PG - Some material may not be suitable for children. Parents urged to give "parental guidance". May contain some material parents might not like for their young children.
PG13 - Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. Parents are urged to be cautious. Some material may be inappropriate for pre-teenagers.
R - Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. Contains some adult material. Parents are urged to learn more about the film before taking their young children with them.
NC17 - No One 17 and Under Admitted. Clearly adult. Children are not admitted.

But that's just it though, if they still would have kept the X rating for porn, then people wouldn't associate the NC-17 with porn, and they would keep it separate.

In the UK, 18 means 18 and over. Nothing more, nothing less, whether it's porn or just some really violent movie, regardless.


If it's got adult stuff in it, it gets an 18 rating. Simple.


I don't think a rating really has much impact on a movie apart from the amount of tickets it sells.
It's not down to people avoiding it... it just means the larger part of the cinema-going public can't go see the movie.

Well I don't think that an 18 or NC-17 rating is going to cut down that much of the public is it? There are a lot of moviegoers over 18.

True, there are a lot of movie-goers over 18...


But the majority of movie-goers are teenagers and kids.


And do the math as well, a movie that everyone and anyone can buy a ticket for, is simply going to sell more tickets.

A prime example is the MCU.
They're all rated 12 in the UK... which in cinemas in the UK is a "12A" rating.
This means 11 years old or under, can attend, but they have to have an adult with them.


If they were rated 15, or even 18... Marvel and Disney would have made a fraction of what they actually made.

Oh okay, I go to a lot of movies as an adult and I see plenty of adults in the theaters and it seems that kids and teenagers are not majority unless it is in the US more so?

I guess that would be dependent on what time of day or week you were in a theater, and what movie you are watching. I make it a point to avoid ANY movie showing between the hours of 5PM Thursday and the final showing on Saturday night just to avoid the teenage horde.

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I make it a point that if I do go to the cinema, it's at opening time, about 9:30am, on a Monday or Tuesday morning
No kids, no adults... just me... in an empty cinema. Bliss.

Well after thinking about the movie, there are other movies with rape scenes in that are just as graphic. The Accused (1988) had a graphic violent rape scene in and that was R rated and the revenge on the rapist is not really that graphic though. A lot of it is shown from Nomi's point of view, even.

It's not as graphic as the murder scenes in The Godfather for example, so why is it that The Godfather and the Accused are R rated but Showgirls somehow gets an NC-17?

Because the MPAA is made up of a bunch of puritanical morons who think sex is horrible and violence is acceptable.

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I agree

It’s the excessive nature of it. It’s the tone. It’s the message. It’s the full frontal. It’s old white guys determining inane things.

Well it seems to me that showgirls has a really crappy message, where as The Godfather and The Accused had good messages. So I guess the crappy message movies are more likely to get NC-17 then...

My gut tells me if Caan had actually been shot up with Tommy guns it would have gotten an NC-17 even though puritanical old white men love violence and hate sex

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