Puppet Sex In Movie Causes Ratings Rift (NC-17)

[matcom]

<snip>

They call it puppet love.

But the folks who determine film ratings call it NC-17.

The filmmakers behind "Team America: World Police," an action-genre satire featuring a team of muscular marionettes that save the world, are butting heads with the Motion Picture Assn. of America over the film's proposed rare rating, which would bar admission to anyone younger than 17.

At the heart of the dispute is a scene in the film that shows simulated sex between the puppets. Thus far, the production team has submitted the scene nine times — each progressively less graphic — to the MPAA board, said Scott Rudin, the film's producer. Each time, the MPAA insisted that the NC-17 rating would remain unless further cuts were made, the filmmakers said. The MPAA did not return phone calls late Monday.

"It's something we all did as kids with Barbie and Ken dolls," said Trey Parker, the film's director and co-creator of the animated TV show "South Park." "The whole joke of it is that it's just two dolls flopping around on each other. You see the hinges on their legs. read into it way more than we ever did…. They said you can't do anything but missionary position."

http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-fi-puppet5oct05.story

[Ready4Change]

1. Thanks God!

Someone is finally taking a stand against the growing immorality in puppetry!

FIrst is was making fun of Elmos speech problems, then Bert and Ernies openly alternative lifestyle, and now puppet SEX!

There's got to be a limit to puppet freedom.

[Phillycat]

3. Exactly.

What they don't realize is, as innocent as this seems, this could lead to sex with puppet box turtles or something absolutely disgusting like that.

[Ready4Change]

5. Unclean thought!

Aaiiiiiiieee! Now I've got to gargle rose water to purify my brain AGAIN. Thanks a bunch.

[SkipNewarkDE]

2. Fucking Hilarious

When I was a kid, I loved those old Gerry Anderson puppet series that came over here from England.... Captain Scarlett (very violent) and of course, the best SuperMarionation program EVER, THUNDERBIRDS!!!! (Lady Penelope-Creichton Ward is FABULOUSSSS)

I can't wait to see this, I hope it is as foul and un-PC as the South Park movie.

[SotarrTheWizard]

15. Lady Penelope was the bomb. . .

. . .and the only reason (other than the 5 Thunderbirds themselves) I actually went out to see that travesty of a Live-action "Thunderbirds" that tanked in the summer.

Thunderbirds movie mini-review:

Ships: cool

Lady P: hot AND pink

Tintin: cute, for a teenage girl. I would have chased her when I was 15 . . . .

Plot: Dick Cheney is more interesting than the so-called plot.

[johnnie]

4. I went to a bachelor party years ago

It was in some hall and as I was standing at the bar I looked over to the TV that someone brought and it had a puppet porn movie on. I was laughing my ass off. They looked like the muppet kind of puppets from what I recall.

[kick-ass-bob]

6. Does this movie look good to anyone?

Anyone?

[Phillycat]

7. Dear god, no.

I saw the preview in the theater with my BF and didn't even crack a smile. Awful. Truly horrible.

[hunter]

8. Won't that be a fine "Extra Feature" on the DVD...

Of course the MPAA raters all practice illicit puppet sex. To them it is real.

[Gothmog]

9. LOL

This is very funny.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

10. It's a damn sad commentary...

that puppets are getting more action than I am.

[redqueen]

11. HAHAHAHAHA

Puppet sex... that's so messed up.

[emad]

Puppet oral sex goes against grain for US censors

The Guardian

The latest feature film from the creators of South Park is facing the box office kiss of death NC-17 rating because of a scene showing simulated oral sex between marionettes.

The makers of Team America: World Police have reportedly gone to great lengths, modifying the offending scene nine times for submission to the Motion Picture Association of America, the US film classification authority. They are keen to secure an R rating, which would allow under-18s to see the film when accompanied by an adult.

The makers, directors Matt Stone and Trey Parker and producer Scott Rudin, are contesting the MPAA classification, saying that the film doesn't show anything that's not been seen before in other R-rated movies. And besides, Rudin told the Hollywood Reporter, "our characters are made of wood and have no genitalia. If the puppets did to each other what we show them doing, all they'd get is splinters."

A resolution to this dispute is particularly urgent because the film-makers are contractually obliged to deliver an R-rated film for release by October 15, but the film is scheduled for sneak previews this coming weekend.

More south park oral sex:
http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,12589,1320095,0...

[asthmaticeog]

12. I'd laugh at this, but the splinters in my lips hurt too much.

[NYCGirl]

13. If the censors watched "Meet the Feebles" their heads would explode!

"Meet the Feebles" is from "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson.

From allmovie.com:

Poor taste is a something easy to achieve on screen, but difficult to do truly artfully. Beyond the work of John Waters (who has made bad taste his raison d'être), one would be hard pressed to find a better example of the creative pinnacle of being gleefully foul than Peter Jackson's "puppets gone to Hell" gross-out comedy, Meet the Feebles. While Meet the Feebles has enough gory violence, icky bodily substances, cross-species sexual contact, foul language, and unapologetic criminality to appall most ordinary audiences (and, as legend has it, to cause Jim Henson's organization to consider possible legal action), the film is far too imaginative and intelligent to sit comfortably alongside, say, Shallow Hal or American Pie. Wynard the Frog's Vietnam flashbacks are both wickedly funny and more politically astute than anything in The Deer Hunter, Harry the Rabbit's extended bout with a sexually transmitted disease is a more honest and gut-wrenching depiction of AIDS than you'll see in most major studio films concerning the subject, and the numerous sexual peccadilloes and flagrant infidelities go past soap-opera level into something that approximates real human anger and anguish, albeit on a broadly comic level. And the sheer scale of the film goes beyond the parameters of a simple bad joke into something that inspires a sort of grimy awe. If you've read this far, you've probably already figured out that Meet the Feebles is not for everyone, but it's a superb slice of wickedly black satire for folks who like their humor to burn a bit on the way down. -- Mark Deming

[LizW]

14. Ridiculous

Of course, the whole movie is ridiculous. They showed the trailer the other day when I took my kids to see the Bernie Mac movie. My kids were like, "What is THAT about?"

But really, puppet sex gets and NC-17? What about that scene in "Love, Actually" where the movie stand-ins were going through the motions of sex? Those were real humans and they were naked, and there was lots more than plain old missionary position!

[DrWeird]

16. I find this disturbing, serious.

Sure, it's a dumb puppet movie, but the MPAA's censoring it based on some sexist, puritanical, antiquated "missionary position only" bullshit.

I'm really more upset about them giving John Waters' new film an NC-17 rating, that was, according to Waters, totally undeserved.