I've got some news for you, nothing is fair

Oh man, I had to stop watching This Film Is Not Yet Rated. It was so solipsistic that I feared I might cease to exist if I continued to watch and validate its logic. Based on the title you might guess that it is an attack on the movie rating system. Various actors and directors are brought out to talk about how the MPAA wanted them to change this or that in their movie. Now all of these people, who have more money and fame than everyone reading this combined, are begging us to see that these minor tweaks to their movies are a great outrage that really must be addressed. You see, the rating system is capricious and arbitrary. Oh bother!

Is there any major policy or rule that is not, at it's base, at the very least arbitrary? The drinking age is 21. The driving age is 16. Abortion is legal in the early trimesters, not in later ones. In some cases, an applicant to a school will get an edge due to race or background, not in others. All of these are arbitrary. And what's more, they are ten thousand times more significant than what a director can show in his or her film. And hey, if you are going to break out the call to action, how a documentary on Iraq (either side is fine), terrorism (again), global warming, racial relations, the food supply or even the state of chocolate.

I am a major free speech advocate and love all the sex and violence you can shovel in my direction. But I beg of you, do not ask me to sympathetic to this wildly successful people, who had their precious films tweaked because of the terrible, wicked studios. Guess what, they have all the money and whether it be the bank, the venture capitalist and the employer, we all have to compromise with those who have the money. If these directors get to have a movie about the nasty studios, can we worker drones have a movie called This Project Is Not Yet Approved, about all the hoops one must jump through to get anything done at work?

Perhaps realizing that their movie is ridiculous, the film-makers bring in the idea that this "censorship" of their movies is really about the control of information and we are all doomed. Yes, unless the South Park guys can get their puppet sex financed and distributed, we are all going to be watched by Big Brother. They also wheel in someone to show that Hollywood promotes the military and that this is dangerous. Andrew Bacevich, in the excellent New American Militarism, makes a nuanced and detailed argument about how pop culture helps create a militarized society. The fellow in this movie undercuts his argument by whining about how the Pentagon wants approval if directors use military assets in their movies. Oh gee, if Mr. Director man uses a real aircraft carrier, is it really so crazy that the Defense Department wants a say so? Jackass.

As you can no doubt discern, this movie made me want to play Misfits songs really loud. So that you might share in this virtual attack, here is Last Caress, Bullet, Ghouls Night Out, and perhaps most appropriately Some Kinda Hate.