AP/Courtesy IFC Films Director Kirby Dick's documentary aims to pull the curtain back on the ratings system for American movies.

Ratings color people's perception of movies, and moviegoers -- particularly parents -- often base their ticket purchases on them. But few casual viewers stop to wonder where those ratings come from.

Filmmaker Kirby Dick wants to change that. His documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," coming out Friday, paints an unflattering portrait of the 38-year-old ratings system run by the Motion Picture Association of America. The movie argues that the MPAA's standards are subjective and that the system lacks accountability because its deliberations and the identities of its raters are kept secret.

"There's no reason the process shouldn't be open. There's no reason you shouldn't know what the votes are," he told asap. "Transparency is essential."

Dick argues the system amounts to censorship since directors typically shoot and edit their films with a rating in mind, in the hopes of appeasing the studios or the investors who back them.

Check out the trailer for 'This Film is Not Yet Rated'.

To find out who the raters are and how they operate, Dick hired a private investigator and accompanied her as she staked out lunches, tailed cars and even rifled through trash. After learning their identities, Dick concludes that the panel meant to represent typical parents lacks clear standards and is unqualified to judge how movies might affect children's psyches.

The MPAA has argued that it's providing a public service by helping parents to judge which movies are suitable for their children.

"The underlying purpose is not to censor the film. It's to give a rating that parents will understand and properly guide their children," MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman told the AP earlier this year. The MPAA didn't immediately respond to asap's requests for an interview.

The trade group for Hollywood's top studios says Dick didn't fairly portray their level of cooperation. Joan Graves, who heads the MPAA's ratings board, told the AP she spent two hours explaining the ratings process to Dick over the phone. The director doesn't deny having a lengthy conversation with her, but the documentary portrays their talks as brusque and short.

In the documentary, the harshest indictments of the MPAA's ratings system come not from Dick but from filmmakers themselves. They complain that the MPAA favors big studio fare over independent films, rates sexual content more harshly than violence and is quick to slap restrictive ratings on movies that portray romantic situations between gays.

Dick makes his point by interweaving the interviews with footage from a variety of movies. In fact, he showed enough sex and violence to earn the documentary an NC-17 of its own.

Some of the points he touches on:

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GAY THEMES

In 1999's "But I'm a Cheerleader," teenage girls suspected of being lesbians are sent to a rehab camp by parents who hope they'll return heterosexual. Despite taking pains to avoid nudity and only imply sexual acts were taking place, writer/director Jamie Babbitt was initially slapped with an NC-17 before earning an R with re-edits.

Meanwhile, a heterosexual teenage comedy from the same year — "American Pie" — earned an R rating despite characters who get naked, fornicate with apple pies, discuss masturbating with band instruments and drink semen from a plastic cup.

Earlier this year, Graves denied that a double standard exists: "If something is graphic enough to be R, it's graphic whether it's homosexual or heterosexual." But because she said many parents believe younger children aren't familiar with homosexuality, she told the AP a gay kiss might earn a PG-13 instead of a PG.

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VIOLENCE VS. SEX

Dick also argues that any sexual content — whether it's a lovemaking scene or simply a frank sexual discussion — receives harsher treatment than violent content.

In the documentary, Wayne Kramer, director of "The Cooler," and the movie's lead actress Maria Bello complain that their film was threatened with an NC-17 because of an extended shot that showed the upper part of the actress's pubic hair. Dick later splices in a much more graphic shot in which a soldier's entrails are exposed during a battle in the R-rated "Saving Private Ryan."

Director John Waters says that while his movie "A Dirty Shame" didn't show nudity, it was slapped with an NC-17 because characters discuss sexual fetishes — many of them made-up — throughout the movie. Meanwhile, action movies such as Last Action Hero, which features gun battles and other violence, escape with a PG-13 because they don't show any blood.

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BIG STUDIO BIAS?

The film also charges that raters are harder on independent films than they are on movies coming from the big studios who pay the MPAA's bills. According to Dick, it's common for directors from major studios to receive user-friendly instructions for avoiding harsh ratings, while indie directors get vague explanations, making it hard for them to recut their movies to earn a more favorable rating.

Waters said that when he asked a representative of the ratings board what parts of "Shame" needed to be reworked, he was told the entire film was objectionable.

South Park co-creator Matt Stone said he received a similarly vague response when he questioned the board about the NC-17 rating for "Orgazmo," an independent film he produced. But when his South Park movie -- released by Paramount -- was up for ratings, Stone said he was given explicit instructions on which scenes to shorten and which sight gags to remove.

Graves has disputed the claim that studios get preferential treatment over independents.

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Jonathan Drew is an asap reporter based in New York.

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