I agree, but I think that's all in the timing. Late 60s-early 70s was the time when the X rating really meant what it was created for; an adult-only audience. The whole Midnight Cowboy thing, etc. However, by the time we get to Deep Throat in 1973, the X rating had already become box office taboo, now synonymous with "porno."
The sad part is that the X rating got the bad rep and it wasn't even USED for most porno. Unable to use the rating because the MPAA refused to give ratings to the genre, the unofficial "XXX" not-rating came about and was slugged onto skin flicks by earnest porno producers hoping that people would thing that if X is bad, boy, THREE Xes must be TRIPLE BAD!
Then finally one day the MPAA decides "Let's erase the taboo of X and create a new adults-only rating and call it NC-17" and what happens? NC-17 becomes box office taboo without even so much as a porno producer using an NC-51 rating or something. Greeeeeeeat.
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dancing_serpent
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Date: 2007-05-01 04:42 pm (UTC)The sad part is that the X rating got the bad rep and it wasn't even USED for most porno. Unable to use the rating because the MPAA refused to give ratings to the genre, the unofficial "XXX" not-rating came about and was slugged onto skin flicks by earnest porno producers hoping that people would thing that if X is bad, boy, THREE Xes must be TRIPLE BAD!
Then finally one day the MPAA decides "Let's erase the taboo of X and create a new adults-only rating and call it NC-17" and what happens? NC-17 becomes box office taboo without even so much as a porno producer using an NC-51 rating or something. Greeeeeeeat.