MPAA rates Bruno an NC-17

Seems Sasha Baron Cohen’s Bruno – the followup to his mockumentary style movie Borat – has been stamped with the dreaded NC-17 rating for controversial sexual scenes. Like we had any doubt that Bruno wouldn’t push the limits for a reaction. But we know this was going to get the MPAA first in line for said reactions and now they will edit the movie down and to sneak in an R.

Like the quote at Latino Review mentions, its not the rating, but that this will reveal some of the intelligent bits from the movie.

In one scene showed at the festival, Bruno auditioned children for a subversive movie with a number of offensive acts. Clueless stage moms agreed to the increasingly absurd requirements set forth by the actor, including one woman admitting that her infant daughter could lose seven pounds in a week to fit the part.

Finally, Bruno told her about the scene, in which the child had to dress as a Nazi pushing someone into an oven.

I have said before that I have not been anticipating this film at all because it sounded like it was just going to be Bruno gay-ing people into shock and horror to illustrate the intolerance of other lifestyles. Funny for about a minute then its the same gag over and over.

But he appears to be hitting up different contraversies as well and I hope that it has the same hidden brilliance that Borat had. In its lowbrow appeal there was some deeply intellectual messages and from what I was seeing from Bruno, it felt like those elements were missing. But now I get a glimmer that it will still be as smart.

I can hope.

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32 thoughts on “MPAA rates Bruno an NC-17

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  2. Sacha Baron Cohen is able to surprise the audience again, except this time he did it with a gay character instead of an eastern European reporter. Interestingly enough, in Borat, the movie, there are plenty of homosexual remarks, not to mention the nude wrestling scene between Borat and his overweight manager. Why is it then that one movie gets rated NC-17 and the other R? It’s the gay thing, I think. If it wasn’t for Bruno being gay, I believe the MPAA would not have given this movie this rating. As long as the character is not openly gay (like Borat), then there is no problem but as soon as this character blatantly says he is gay, then the MPAA gets all worried.

    You can tell this movie has a “hidden brilliance” already by the way it is marketed. The executives will surely use this rating as a marketing tool, but this rating also proves the point that the movie is trying to make, which is similar to the one in Borat: America needs to reflect upon what it says about freedom, and see if it actually means what it says, particularly in conservative states like Texas (where the movie was shot).

  3. only in america, excessive violence is a-okay, sex and nudity is bad….. makes me wonder, where is the wathcmen fall into these? They do have both violence and nudity abound….

  4. I don’t see what the problem with NC-17 is, plenty of films in the UK are rated 18 meaning you have to be 18 and over, most of my favourite ones…for example:

    Training Day
    American Gangster
    Taxi Driver
    Pulp Fiction
    Eastern Promises
    Man on Fire
    The Departed
    Requiem for a Dream
    Magnolia
    The Big Lebowski

    ….i could write this list all day.

    Also it means the cinema wont be full of t**ts

  5. It’s a MARKETING PLOY. Of course it wont be NC-17 when it comes out. Everyone knows that. It’s months and months and months away and the studio leaks this shit just to raise awareness and get people talking.

  6. While I wouldn’t say the MPAA “ruins” movies, the do infringe their own sense of morality on movies. It’s the whole reason they came up with the whole NC-17. If an ‘R’ rating implies that this film is intended for adult audiences, then that’s all you need.

    One of the problems is that before the NC17 rating existed, it was simple X rated. The NC17 rating didn’t come along until the early 1990’s. And around the same time and a bit earlier, the porn industry started using the X (and later XXX) ‘rating’ system (even though hardly any porn was officially submitted to the MPAA).

    The MPAA wanted to “avoid confusion” between real X movies and porn X so they changed it to ‘NC17’. Which to this day, many people associate with sex or the porn industry.

    What further fascinates me is the difference between the United States and Europe, etc in WHAT gets rated WHAT. In the US using a few “F*CKS” or showing some nudity/sex gets you at least an ‘R’ rating. While at the same time you can have people shooting faces off, blowing up buildings, gunning down hundreds of people and you might even stay within PG, but usually PG13. It seems the rest of the world seem far more accepting of sex scenes and some language, and far less forgiving about excessive violence… which I think is more in line with the way it SHOULD be.

    Kick me for forgetting the name, but there was a documentary out a few years back that dealt specifically with the MPAA… it was quite fascinating.

    1. I think John is spot on. The MPAA doesn’t ruin movies. We, and filmmakers, might be confused about what is allowed and what is not allowed for certain ratings from time-to-time, but for the most part, the guidelines they describe on their website are pretty clear cut.

      And Anti-Septic – talentless hack? Cohen might rub some the wrong way, but he’s definitely not talentless or a hack. I’d love to understand why you think that, but I’m guessing you haven’t put much thought into it.

    2. Actually the MPAA is a joke. A movie like the HillsHaveEyes can get an R rating but if a movie has too much penis and sex scenes it gets an NC17. The fact that Zack and Miri went thru extended cuts while Hostel didn’t is idiotic. Only America where Violence is okay but penis and vagina are horrible.

  7. ” the child had to dress as a Nazi pushing someone into an oven.”

    HAHAHAHAAH!!!! ^^^

    In Borat they have some gross ball sack scenes so im sure THIS will have something that will be bad..

    If “Kids” was PG-17 then im sure this can easily top that

    1. The MPAA categorizes. That is all.

      The studios that change their work to earn a more suitable category are doing so by their own choosing.

      The MPAA does not do anything to change a movie. You can’t blame them for this.

    2. How does the MPAA runin movies? They don’t do anything except slap a warning on films for parents about what films may or may not be appropriate for little kids to see.

      I feel no sympathy for any studio that wants to peddle hard core stuff to little kids. It’s all greed on their part… the adult audience isn’t enough… they want kids too.

    3. Yes but it forces the filmmakers to make changes, often unwanted changes because theater chains won’t show it and newspapers won’t advertise them. It’s forced censorship. The MPAA also contradict themselves all the time, allowing bigger directors to get away with stuff smaller films could never do.

      And don’t say that the filmmakers should know this before hand because then they would be catering to a handful of people that have nothing to do with film making to begin with.

    4. It doesn’t FORCE anything. They could accept that with the content they have it qualifies them for a certain rating and live with it.

      They want to broaden their market and make it less restrictive, then they can make changes.

      They just use a rating system for informing people of what they might face if they attend the movie. They don’t MAKE anyone do anything.

      If they wanted to keep the movie AS IS, they could release it NC-17.

      If anything the MPAA makes it better for the movie so that they can release an “unrated” dvd. So they can double dip on the version that they put out to appeal to the masses, and the version they sell you AGAIN with the content they left out that would have been inappropriate for the younger audiences.

  8. i was surprised the MPAA let that rape in last house on the left go through….never will understand how rape is allowed but male nudity is no no…kinda weird

    but of course they are gonna get it recut for an R rating. NC-17 is a death trap movies…i.e. no money

    1. its what u expect it to be….the trailers sum it up for u, if u thought the trailers were cool, u will prolly enjoy it…its a brutal movie tho

  9. It doesn’t matter.

    Yes, there may be content in the film which is in poor taste, such as the scene described above. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call it “intelligent”, it sounds the exact opposite to me. While it is obvious to show what “clueless” people would do to get their children “famous” (or themselves), it’s also obvious it’s in poor taste.

    So why doesn’t stuff like that matter?
    Long story short, extra deleted scenes on the DVD/ Director’s cut, what have you.

    1. well i have to say that even though i love half of the stuff sasha does…theother half is over the top and in poor taste…with that said sign me up to see this film lol …. if i can watch the movie MILK and come out saying that it was a pretty inspiring story then i can deal with some gay humor.

  10. Ive always maintained that Bruno isnt a one note character. Saying he will just gay it up is like saying that Borat just acted foreign at people, there is a little more to it, he lampoons the whole fame game.

  11. From a filmmaker’s perspective, shooting for the moon makes sense. You have to know they have an inkling the cut they submitted to the MPAA was going to get an NC-17. Because now the movie gets some buzz about content (which will lead people to see it) and the filmmakers can go to their R rated cut, which they like just fine and have probably already planned on releasing. Either way, this should be pretty funny.

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