History Film / ThisFilmIsNotYetRated

** Numerous clips of Jack Valenti show him asserting that the members of the board "are neither gods nor fools, just parents" and represent the "average family". Jamie Babbit, the director of ''Film/ButImACheerleader'', wonders if Valenti thought that meant [[HasTwoMommies gay and lesbian parents such as herself]]. [[ForegoneConclusion You can probably guess the answer.]] Of course, you can't really define the term "average family" in America because of all the different co-existing cultures. Unless the MPAA refers to "anything that we can't construe as mentally or physically abusive under US law", then their definition can't make sense given everything that they won't allow in an R-rated movie. As investigation showed, most of the censors were ''not'' an "average family" anyway.

* GayPanic: In-universe. The film dedicates a brief section to how the MPAA often rates scenes with explicit homosexual content higher than scenes with explicit heterosexual content, even if the straight version is more explicit than the gay one (e.g. a lesbian [[ADateWithRosiePalms masturbating]] through her bedclothes in ''Film/ButImACheerleader'' risks an NC-17, but Creator/KevinSpacey's character miserably masturbating in the shower in ''Film/AmericanBeauty'' gets an R).

** Numerous clips of Jack Valenti show him asserting that the members of the board "are neither gods nor fools, just parents" and represent the "average family". Jamie Babbit, the director of ''Film/ButImACheerleader'', wonders if Valenti thought that meant [[HasTwoMommies gay and lesbian parents such as herself]]. [[ForegoneConclusion You can probably guess the answer.]]
*** Of course, you can't really define the term "average family" in America because of all the different co-existing cultures. Unless the MPAA refers to "anything that we can't construe as mentally or physically abusive under US law", then their definition can't make sense given everything that they won't allow in an R-rated movie.
*** As investigation showed, most of the censors were ''not'' an "average family" anyway.

-->-- '''Joan Graves'''

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* CensorshipBureau: See OmniscientCouncilOfVagueness. Because the MPAA doesn't want to be perceived as this, they're often hesitant to explain exactly ''why'' they're giving a specific film a specific rating, leaving directors and editors to guess at how much of what to cut for resubmission to reach a target rating. Flat-out asking the MPAA how the film would need to be edited to reach a target rating may or may not work. . . and seems to be more likely to work if it's a studio-backed feature, less likely to work for an independent film.

* DoubleStandard: The film points out plenty of them -- how sex scenes are often edited more than scenes of violence (including rape scenes), how male nudity is censored compared to female nudity, and how homosexual love scenes can cause higher content ratings compared to heterosexual love scenes, among others.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: The filmmakers didn't present the final released version of this documentary to the MPAA (it only has a second's worth of difference), which means the film never ended up rated by the MPAA.
* ExplicitContent: Unavoidable, given the subject of the film.

* MohsScaleOfViolenceHardness: The interesting point is made by one of the interviewed filmmakers that a film like, say, ''Film/TheGodfather'', which has fairly sparse but ''very'' brutal violence, gets an R rating, while a ''Franchise/JamesBond'' film, with dozens or hundreds of people gunned down in BloodlessCarnage, gets a PG or PG-13. But since the latter example is inarguably less realistic than the former, it should logically take a more mature mind to realize it as a sanitized and fantastic version of violence, thus sanitized violence should be restricted to more mature audiences while younger audiences should be shown the more realistic version of the horror and consequences of violence.