A few weeks ago, I both wrote and tweeted about the trailer for Love Is Strange, Ira Sachs’ upcoming romantic drama starring John Lithgow and Alfred Molina as a longterm couple who find their relationship tested by external circumstances. The beautiful teaser was emotive and intelligent – here, it was clear, was an adult drama of considerable nuance and subtlety.

But hang on a moment – it’s a story about a gay couple, and therefore must be deviant and dangerous and hidden from our children, right? That’s apparently what the American ratings board, the MPAA, thinks. In the US, the film, which has no sex scenes or nudity, has received an R-rating.
Such double standards won’t come as a surprise to director Kirby Dick, whose documentary, This Is An Unrated Film, addressed the MPAA’s consistent hypocrisy when it came to rating heterosexual acts and homosexual acts. Kirby shows that films that depict exactly the same sexual acts will be rated differently, with heterosexual sex receiving an R rating, while homosexual acts will be slapped with a very restrictive NC-17 rating.
An example is when a woman performs oral sex on a man on screen, such as in Single White Female or Swordfish. Inevitably, the result is an R rating. However, when the oral sex is female on female, as was the case in Where the Truth Lies, expect to be slapped with an NC-17.
The MPAA has also taken it upon itself to ‘up’ the rating of films showing females receiving oral sex from men, such as Blue Valentine and Charlie Countryman; or masturbating, such as in Jamie Babbit’s But I’m A Cheerleader. While these films merited an NC-17 rating, American Pie, for example, shows copious male masturbation, topless females, females performing oral sex on men, and sperm being spit into beer. This film got an R rating – just like Love Is Strange.
As the MPAA knows, ratings determine the amount of screens a film is shown in. By imposing their homophobic, heterocentric and misogynistic moral standards, they’re maintaining prejudicial status quo.