Palm d'Or Winner 'Blue Is The Warmest Color' Slapped with NC-17 Rating

"This is a landmark film with two of the best female performances we have ever see on screen.  The film is first and foremost a film about love, coming of age and passion. We refuse to compromise Kechiche's vision by trimming the film for an R rating, and we have every confidence that BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR will play in theaters around the country regardless. An NC-17 rating no longer holds the stigma it once did, and we look forward to bringing this unforgettable film to audiences nationwide. We believe this film will leave a lasting imprint as the LAST TANGO IN PARIS for a whole new generation."

So says Jonathan Sehring, President of Sundance Selects/IFC Films about his Palm d'Or-winning romance Blue is the Warmest Color, which just got slapped with a restrictive NC-17 rating by the MPAA for “explicit sexual content.” They might as well have said "because girls having sex is kind of icky and junk". Ironically, in France the film has a rating of '12' which basically means it's only restricted from kids below that age. It'll be nice when we stop letting the sexual prudes run the show around here.To the studio's credit they aren't going to try and appeal the ruling, deciding to release it on October 25th in its full 3-hour capacity.

The film stars Adele Exarchopoulos as a young woman who experiences a sexual awakening when she meets and falls for a blue-haired student played by Lea Seydoux. There's no doubt it's not exactly a story for the kiddies anyway as it's said to have a large amount of sex that wasn't simulated. The NC-17 rating does seem a little harsh, though, and is just another hurdle for the film which has faced other troublesome rulings against it. While it would seem to be an obvious favorite for the Best Foreign Language Academy Award, it won't qualify due to arbitrary rules concerning overseas dates. An Oscar run would have bumped up its marketability considerably, and now with this latest judgement by the MPAA the deck does seem stacked against Blue Is the Warmest Color having any box office success in America.

Personally I find this whole thing silly as shit, but "sex vs. violence" argument against the MPAA has been made ad nauseum. No need to go through it again. I'll be happy when movie studios do what the comic book publishers did when they wanted to escape the clutches of the Comics Code Authority, which is create their own rating system. Maybe as comics and film become more intertwined than ever, the likelihood of that happening will increase.