Native Nudity (or, “bastards, part 2”)

I’m watching Apocalypto right now, instantly on the netflix. 

Before the movie started, there was one of those “this movie is rated...” with a list of the potentially objectionable elements.

It’s rated R and contains “adult content, adult language, brief nudity, and graphic violence”. That’s what Starz thinks. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA—the people who assign ratings, which, by the way, is not a law; it’s supposedly voluntary*) list it as “Rated R for sequences of graphic violence and disturbing images”, with no mention of nudity.

If you’re not familiar with the film, it’s about native Americans and the decline of a civilization, enslavement of other native groups, etc. There are a fair number of bare or partially exposed “native” breasts, including nipples.

Seriously, MPAA? You know that if there were that many “civilized” breasts in a film, their ratings would mention it. And Starz probably wouldn’t call it “brief”.

I’ve written briefly about this before. This is just another example of our fucked up ideas about nudity and bodies.

* There’s a great documentary called This Film is Not yet Rated (IMDB.com page) about the MPAA their ratings “system”.