Jack Valenti Says Change Possible for Film Ratings

For the first time since the movie rating system has come under increased pressure for modifications to its adults-only X classification, Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, has publicly acknowledged that a change may be coming.

“Nothing lasts, everything is subject to change,” Valenti said, after emerging Wednesday night from a two-hour meeting with representatives from the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America West and several well-known directors.

Valenti was not specific about what changes he might consider to a system he devised 22 years ago to stave off the threat of community and government censorship to a movie industry that was then undergoing its own sexual revolution. The only previous change, the addition of a PG-13 category, was made in 1984 in reaction to a maelstrom of controversy over the violence in the PG-rated “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”

Valenti said that a small committee will be formed among the groups attending Wednesday’s meeting “on how we can make improvements (to the ratings) and benefit the parents of America.” The committee will be selected by WGAW executive director Brian Walton and DGA executive director Glenn Gumpel.

Walton described the session as “a very good meeting. We’re all agreed that it’s a difficult question.” He said he and Gumpel would move quickly to name a committee.

The meeting at the DGA headquarters in Hollywood had been arranged amid a growing feeling in the industry that the MPAA’s X rating category no longer addresses current distinctions for adult-themed movies. Last week, both the WGAW and the DGA, while expressing support for the MPAA ratings, cited increased unhappiness in the industry as they initiated the discussions with Valenti.

Many film directors and film critics have been arguing for years that the ratings needed to be overhauled to allow non-pornographic adult-themed films to be made and distributed without facing the economic hardship that inevitably follows the X rating. Since the early ‘70s, when pornographers co-opted the uncopyrighted X to flag their films for the burgeoning hard-core market, many mainstream theater chains have refused to book X-rated films and many newspapers and TV stations have refused advertising for them.

The current debate was prompted by an unusual rash of X-rated independent films, and the protests launched against them by the distributors. In two instances, the MPAA was sued by the films’ distributors. One of the suits, brought by Miramax Films over the X given “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!,” was dismissed in a New York court, but the judge’s scathing personal indictment of the rating system was seen as a major victory for opponents of the system.

Until Wednesday, Valenti had steadily maintained that no changes in the system were needed and that none was being considered.

A frequent suggestion has been that the MPAA create an “A” adults only category between the current R (which supposedly prevents children under 17 from attending without an adult) and the X. Silverlight Entertainment, a small New York distributor, recently announced plans to self-label Wayne Wang’s X-rated “Life Is Cheap . . . but Toilet Paper Is Expensive” with an A and to carry a disclaimer on ads explaining that the MPAA ratings are no longer relevant.

Earlier this week, the New York Times, which does not run ads for X-rated films, agreed to run Silverlight’s ad for “Life Is Cheap,” with the A rating.

Silverlight also circulated among major directors a petition requesting changes in the MPAA ratings. The petition was signed by 31 major film directors, including Sydney Pollack, Barry Levinson, Walter Hill, David Lynch, Ron Howard, Spike Lee and Blake Edwards. (Levinson and Hill were among a handful of the petition signers participating in Wednesday’s meeting.)

Still, the strongest condemnation of the rating system came from the judge who ruled in the MPAA’s favor over “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!” Judge Charles E. Ramos called the system censorship.

Valenti reacted angrily to Ramos’ 15-page July 19 opinion, saying the judge did not understand the mission of the rating system, and he insisted that no changes will be made in it as long as there is no pressure from the parents for whom it was created.

The DGA’s Gumpel said he came away from Wednesday’s meeting with the “recognition that Jack will take a look at the system.” He added that the possibility of an A rating was “obviously discussed,” but he would not elaborate.