 Less than a week ago, I had the good fortune to get hold of a screener for the DVD This Film Is Not Yet Rated. It’s a documentary by Director Kirby Dick and Producer Eddie Schmidt that looks at the extremely secretive process of getting a film rated by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Call me ignorant (I’d appreciate you using the forums instead of yelling at me on the street), but I was amazed and disturbed by just how shadowy the process was. It hit me very hard as a writer that this was a process that actually manipulates freedom of speech and expression through economic pressure. Like the filmmakers themselves, I walked away outraged that no one was paying attention to this.
On January 24, 2007, I had the pleasure of talking with Eddie Schmidt about the film, and what follows is the transcription of that conversation. Schmidt came across as an extremely personable and likeable guy. His knowledge on the subject is only surpassed by his enthusiasm in talking about it… and keep in mind that he’d taken a number of similar calls that same day, as our conversation took place around 4:00 p.m.
 : Hi Eddie, how are you doing?
Eddie: Great, thanks.
: I’m talking to you on behalf of DVDInMyPants.com, and as you can probably guess by the name, this interview will not be censored by any ratings board.
Eddie: (laughing) Well, good! I wouldn’t stand for that. I mean “in my pants” is a great comedy equalizer. Anything “in my pants” is funny.
: I guess where I’d like to start out is with the MPAA changes that were just announced late last week. I saw your film for the first time less than a week ago. I’ve seen it three times since, and I think it’s fantastic.
Eddie: Thank you.
: It just floored me, the secrecy around everything involved in this process and how there is no recommendation on how to change the rating of your film, etc. Looking at the changes the MPAA listed out, it doesn’t look like they’ve really made any substantial changes at all.
 Eddie: That’s exactly it. What they’ve done is basically paid lip service to the idea of reform, but they’ve really failed to address any systemic problems in the process. In other words, they’re countering the bad rap that they’ve gotten. I think they want to improve the public’s perception; they don’t actually want to fix the system. It’s pretty clear from the issues we raised that there are steps they could take to improve the process, and they’re just doing the most superficial things they can do so they can herald them as great big changes.
: I agree with you completely, and the only thing on there that I saw that was of any substance whatsoever was the idea that you might be able to cite past precedent in the appeals process. But really, how much do you think that’s going to change anything?
Eddie: First of all, the idea that they have had a quasi-legal proceeding where you have not been able to cite precedent is absurd. I mean, what else could you bring up besides other movies? So, the fact that this is a revolutionary change for them is pretty amusing. Do I think it will have a really big impact? No, not really, but I think that they’ll go on processing the information in the appeal the same way, they just won’t cut you off when you mention Basic Instinct.
: While we’re on the subject of the ratings board themselves, the one thing I keep hearing from other people who have seen the film is, “Well, you know they show you everything about the ratings board, but they don’t really tell you how it could be made into a better system.” In comparison to our system, how does Europe do it?
Eddie: They do it slightly different in each country, but on the whole, as we said in the film, the ratings boards are not secretive. The members are known to the public. They do take expert opinion on things like child psychology and media literacy and they focus more strongly on violence than they do on sex. Sort of the opposite of the way it goes here. I think it’s interesting that people are commenting on the “solution” aspect because I think the job of this film was to shed light on something that really, no one knew anything about. Really, we wanted to just blow the whole thing open. I mean, it’s for the public and yet the public knows nothing about this. Now, hopefully the public has the tools to begin to question what they’re not seeing and why. I think there are many ways to approach a better system, but the main thing, and what I think we’re saying in the film, is that we need transparency.
: Right.
Eddie: When you have secrets and when you have a board that meets in secret, then you have no accountability. So by just opening up the process, making the members of the ratings board and the appeals board known and making the process (the deliberate voting process) known, giving details that would be meaningful to parents about how a film got it’s rating… that would make a much better system right there. I feel like those points are clear from watching the film, but again, I would love to see people come at it with a lot of ideas and suggestions. I think there are many ways the ratings system could be improved, but no one has been able to make suggestions because of the ignorance of the process.
: I agree with you, and again, in watching this, I was just floored by how secretive the whole thing is and how powerful this board is. I mean, with nothing more than a phone call, your advertising budget gets cut and there’s no word on how to change that!
Eddie: Absolutely.
: In watching this with my wife the first time, she was intrigued by this connection that the film kind of hints at. That is the idea that the leniency towards violence may in some way be designed to glorify military service or something to that effect. Other than the Pentagon rules for getting military cooperation on a film, did you run across any specific examples of that?
 Eddie: Well, I think that, first of all, it’s said in the film that the violent entertainment appeals to a teenage audience, and Hollywood is often chasing that audience. So, is it surprising that a ratings system set up under the jurisdiction of Hollywood would be more likely to pass violent films through with an “R” rating or “PG-13” rating? No, it’s not surprising.
On the flipside, is it surprising that foreign films or independent films that deal with sexuality would have a harsher time? No, because that’s sort of the competition of Hollywood, and those films are sort of antithetical to the market that Hollywood is chasing. I think that’s sort of the bottom line/economic underside of the rating system that is controlled in secret by Hollywood.
The militaristic side of things is sort of a side note of allowing violent films to come into the culture more easily and keeping films that deal with adult sexuality and those sorts of things in a box. However, Hollywood have also made themselves friendly to the Pentagon by giving them things like script approval and content approval for films that deal with the military. To me, it just seemed sort of “part and parcel” of the sort of double standard of violence and sex.
: Going back to the board itself now, in the commentary, Kirby Dick (Director) says something to the effect that he’d spoken to someone who had talked to Jack Valenti and he said he’d seen the film. Valenti supposedly said something like, “Hey I have a good sense of humor. I liked it.” Have you heard any other comments from any other members of the ratings board?
Eddie: Well, since that time Valenti was quoted as saying, “I think this film is childish.”
: (laughing) Really?
Eddie: Yeah. So that made me laugh. The LA Times did an Op-Ed piece in October that supported our film and supported our contention that (the ratings system) is for the public and the members should be known. Valenti wrote a rebuttal letter that was published. It pretty much reiterates all the things he’s been saying for 31 years like, “78% of parents find it ‘very useful’ to ‘fairly useful’” and he still failed to address all the things that the film brings up. I mean, I think he just stuck to his guns and tried to ignore it as much as possible.
: Talking about the MPAA itself, one of the things in the film that just cracks me up is when Becky (Altringer, the Private Investigator), walks right up to the guard shack with the video recorder and gets the phone list.
Eddie: (laughs) Yeah.
: Were you guys surprised at just how lax the security ended up being considering it is such a secretive organization?
Eddie: Yes, frankly. I mean, that booth is clearly visible from the street and it has that information right there. They’ve kind of shrouded themselves in secrecy and they haven’t let any other organizations in or let people find this stuff out, but in reality it didn’t seem like they were working at it all that hard. I mean Becky certainly did a lot of follow-up work to figure things out, but yes it was amusing that it was just sort right there. (laughs)
: Out of curiosity, what prompted Kirby to make the film in the first place? Was it something that sprung out of an incident with Twist of Faith (one of Dick’s previous films) or was it just out of curiosity?
 Eddie: No, and actually I’m glad you asked that. Kirby and I conceived of this film together and had written the treatment and been pitching it for a few years. It did not come out of a bad personal experience, meaning that our films had gone out without ratings so there was no personal vendetta here. What there was, was sort of this intellectual desire to figure out what was behind the curtain. You know?
We wanted to pull it back and find the Wizard of Oz that we’d read so much about and been fascinated by. We’d heard so many stories of frustrated filmmakers and we’d read so much criticism from critics and academics, and yet no one had done this before. No one had kind of dived in and tried to figure out how they did what they did, and that’s kind of where the idea for the film came from. Why have they been so unresponsive to all this criticism? How can they not want to address it? We wanted to dive in, look at it and hopefully get them to address it. Hopefully, we succeeded in that and the public will look at this and go, “Hey, this doesn’t seem right. I want to ask questions about this.”
: And it seems to me that every person I talk to about this… and admittedly, I’m talking to a circle of friends who are… there’s no other word for it… we’re film geeks.
Eddie: (laughing) Hey, I’m a film geek too.
: (laughing) But all of us seem to think the same thing that you’re saying, “Hey we should be talking about this. Let’s get this out in the open.” But you have to wonder how that’s going to play in Middle America. Especially knowing that maybe what Valenti says is true. Perhaps 78% of Americans are looking at the ratings and not even caring about what’s in the film. Maybe they are just saying, “Oh it’s PG-13? Go ahead and watch it.” You know? How much of a dialogue do you really think this is going to create?
Eddie: I think actually a lot because parents just want information. I mean, I’m a film geek, but I’m also a parent. I find the ratings not very useful at all because they don’t provide enough information. There are a lot of websites out there that I think do a much better job. If the MPAA simply provided content descriptors that were meaningful rather than these haikus like “some horror violence”… what the hell does that mean? It means nothing. So if you just provided a content descriptor and didn’t classify it and put it in a box, I think that would be fine for parents. They would be happy to have more information.
It’s kind of like what Matt Stone (South Park creator) says in the movie, “78% of parents find it ‘very useful’ to ‘fairly useful’… compared to what?” Nothing. Compared to nothing, sure it’s useful. The phone book is useful, but compared to the Internet, the Internet is more useful. The MPAA are the only game in town and therefore they have a stranglehold on being useful.
 : I know that in the commentary and in the Q&A provided on the DVD, Kirby says many times that he feels like he’s kind of inoculated now as far as his next film goes. He even makes a joke about telling the other directors who appeared in the film that also. Have you heard anything from any of the other directors appearing in your film? I believe that at the time your film wrapped, Clerks II hadn’t been submitted yet.
Eddie: No we really haven’t heard anything from any other directors. Clerks II did get an “R”, but I really don’t think our film should get any credit for that. I really think that the board members probably aren’t going to go out of their way to rate a film generously, but they’re probably not going to rate anything harshly either. I think in the back of their minds they might think about it, but hopefully not. Hopefully they’re just doing their job and rating films based on content, not thinking about whether someone appeared in this film at all. That’s all you can hope for.
: I just want to say this before we finish. If ever the opportunity affords itself and I meet either one of you… the drinks are on me.
Eddie: (laughs loudly)
: Seriously, I mean it! It took some serious balls to make this film, and I’m very impressed that there’s somebody out there willing to do something like this because you’re biting the hand that feeds you in a big way.
Eddie: I usually make the joke about future films by saying from now on I’ll only make “G”-rated films. Then I’ll definitely be inoculated, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Thank you, though.
In making a film like this, you certainly go through the process and think, “Should I do something like this? Will there be negative repercussions on my career?” But I kept answering that in my head, “No. This is something that has to be done, and someone has to tell this story. I have to tell this story. We have to tell this story. This just isn’t right that people live in fear of this system, and we should be taking a look at this.”
: Well, thanks again for taking the time, and here’s looking forward to your next film.
Eddie: Thank you. Take care, man.
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