In Kissimmee, Fla., the city commission tonight will consider making the new NC-17 movie rating a part of the community's already tough restrictions on adult entertainment, and forbidding children from attending adult-rated movies under any circumstances .
But the Motion Picture Assn. of America, which administers the movie ratings, isn't happy about the prospect. While the MPAA says it shares the goals of advising parents on guidelines for movies, it doesn't cotton to having its voluntary--and copyrighted--rating system written into anyone's law.
The Kissimmee vote is only the latest in a growing number of problems and challenges the MPAA has encountered since September when it introduced NC-17--meaning no children admitted under age 17. The rating replaced the much-maligned, porn-tainted X category.
In Kissimmee, a community of 30,000 not far from Walt Disney World and Universal Tours Florida, the operators of the city's three movie theaters already have given the city commissioners their assurances that they will not show NC-17-rated fare, let alone sexually explicit movies.
Still, there was a perceived need for revising the city's restrictions on adult entertainment among three of the five city commissioners and support from spectators at last week's meeting when the ordinance was first introduced. "We had a houseful of people for something I thought was a simple thing," said Richard Herring, one of the commissioners who supports a change.
"There was standing-room only," said Mayor John Pollet, who opposes the ordinance, "but it came from a lot of Southern Baptists who want to restrict it (movie going)."
Like many communities, Kissimmee already has restrictions on adult entertainment. Herring and his allies want to add the phrase "NC-17" to the law, which currently prohibits sexually explicit movies from being shown to children unaccompanied by adults. The change also would make the person who sells the ticket the responsible party. And since NC-17 means no children under 17 without exception, Herring said that the addition of a specific rating to the city's law would prohibit children from attending--with or without an adult.
"We knew what 'X' was," explained Herring. "So now the movie industry changed the terminology, so we're updating the terminology in our ordinance."
Herring said he saw MPAA President Jack Valenti on TV and, "took Mr. Valenti at his word . . . that NC-17 is purely adult entertainment. He looked like a grandfather to me. Very smiley. And I said, 'Gee, gramps, we'll take you up on that.' "
