Many non-pornographic films have received an X-rating by the MPAA over the years. In 1969, "Midnight Cowboy" received an X-rating, and actually went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1971, "A Clockwork Orange" received an X-rating and went on to become a cult classic. I 1973, "Last Tango In Paris", starring Marlon Brando, received an X-rating. I never saw that film, but I know that Brando never would have been a contentuh if he had ever appeared in a smutty film. Also, in 1986, "Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer" received an X-rating.
For years, the MPAA had been granting films by major studios an R-rating, while giving similar films by independent and foreign filmmakers the dreaded X. For example, if the same rule that applied to independent and foreign films applied to the major studios, such films as "Fatal Attraction" and "Dangerous Liaisons", among others, might have received an X-rating. By copyrighting the NC-17 rating, the MPAA could, it was hoped, rate violent or risque' films without stigmatizing them. (to be cont'd)
[The original version of this essay first appeared in Eastern Connecticut State University's Campus Lantern student newspaper in the early '90s, in my unpublished manuscript "In Mediocrity We Trust... In Debt We Die" And Other Essays, and in UMass/Boston's Mass Media student newspaper in the mid-90s.
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