Please watch this film, I’m begging you. It’s one of the most important docs about the film industry out there.

We wrap up documentary month with one of our all-time favorite docs–a movie that’s just as relevant today as when it was made almost 15 years ago: the MPAA is still out there, their members are still secret, and ratings are still being used as a way to censor films and limit distribution of films by marginalized creators.
Please, please do your best to seek out this film. It’ll make you angry. And it should.

CONTENT WARNING for discussion of sexual assault, homophobia, and brutal violence

Hollywood Censorship – The Blacklist

USEFUL Content Warnings for Films

1:30 How We Got This DVD
6:00 Mr. Dick
8:00 A Brief History of Film Censorship
15:00 How a Rating Makes or Breaks a Movie
20:00 The Secret Movie Ratings Board
25:00 Filmmakers’ “Put in Something for Them to Cut” Hack
30:00 This Film as proto-YouTube Video Essay
33:00 Sex vs Violence (and Sexualized Violence)
41:00 The Adorable Married Lesbian Private Investigators
46:00 Submitting This Film for Rating
53:00 Ratings vs Content Warnings
57:00 Should You Watch This

Say hi to Dorothy and Vrai on Twitter @writervrai and @dorothynotgale

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