Star of Fredrik Bond’s upcoming film Charlie Countryman alongside Shia LaBeouf Evan Rachel Wood has passionately called out Hollywood’s double standards and warped approach to female sexuality – and the subsequent ratings a film may warrant – in a an *applause* worthy Twitter attack. Wood took aim at the Motion Picture Association of America‘s R rating on Charlie Countryman, made possible (and taken down from the initial NC-17 rating, USA’s relative equivalent to Australia’s R18+) only after a scene involving oral sex performed on a female character was cut from the film (because it was “uncomfortable”), while graphically violent scenes in the film remained. Cool bullshit story, MPAA.
On twitter, Evan Rachel Wood lamented the attitudes of the MPAA towards female sexuality and called for change in the industry: “I would like 2 share my disappointment with the MPAA, who thought it was necessary to censor a womans [sic] sexuality once again…the scene where the two main characters make ‘love’ was altered because someone felt that seeing a man give a woman oral sex made people ‘uncomfortable’ but the scenes in which people are murdered by having their heads blown off remained intact and unaltered. This is a symptom of a society that wants to shame women and put them down for enjoying sex, especially when (gasp) the man isn’t getting off as well! Its hard for me to believe that had the roles been reversed it still would have been cut OR had the female character been raped it would have been cut. Its time for people to GROW UP. Accept that women are sexual beings. Accept that some men like pleasuring women. Accept that women don’t have to just be fucked and say thank you. We are allowed and entitled to enjoy ourselves. Its time we put our foot down.”
Unfortunately, censorship and seemingly conservative ratings from the MPAA, much like Australia’s censorship board, are not rare in the US; an especially similar case to the Charlie Countryman rating and Evan Rachel Wood’s denouncement of the decision came in 2010, when the stunning film Blue Valentine was initially given an NC-17 rating, reportedly due to a scene in which Michelle Williams’ character receives oral sex from her boyfriend played by Ryan Gosling. Perturbed by the double standard that he felt wouldn’t have seen the same rating if the scene reversed partners, your boyfriend Ryan Gosling wrote a passionate open letter, calling the MPAA’s ruling ‘misogynistic’. Gosling wrote, “Hey girl, The MPAA is okay supporting scenes that portray women in scenarios of sexual torture and violence for entertainment purposes, but they are trying to force us to look away from a scene that shows a woman in a sexual scenario, which is both complicit and complex. It’s misogynistic in nature to try and control a woman’s sexual presentation of self.”
Much like MPAA’s censoring of a Jon Hamm/Emily Browning sex scene in 2011, Evan Rachel Wood’s Charlie Countryman rant only further affirms the sexism that prevails in Hollywood and further entrenches the frustrating concept that actors can enjoy sex while actresses cannot. Ugh, welcome to 2013.
Via Complex.
