What was the first NC-17 movie shown in cinemas?
Do you remember how old you were when you watched a movie that you were far too young to be seeing?
Perhaps you snuck a copy of a VHS or a DVD with a bold red circle reading ‘18’ on it out of your parents’ movie cabinet, or one with a rectangle reading ‘R’ or ‘NC-17’, boldly declaring yourself old enough to watch whatever was contained within the plastic case.
There was nothing like the thrill of watching a PG movie (PG-13 if you’re in America) without a parent or guardian, even though you technically weren’t meant to be. And what about when you discovered the movie you wanted to watch was simply a U? How boring. These age ratings became milestones for young movie lovers and rebellious kids with a desire to go against the official rating boards. Could you successfully rent a movie or sneak into a screening that you were too young for?
You might think that the Motion Picture Association or the BBFC’s guidelines are sometimes a little dramatic because, at the end of the day, different people are going to be scared (and scarred) by different things, no matter their age. Incredibly, the age of consent in the UK is 16, but you’ve still got two years until you can watch pretty graphic movies labelled 18, a rating usually given to movies featuring graphic sex, and over in the US, you can’t drink until you’re 21, but you can watch an NC-17 movie packed with intense sex and violence several years before that.
But these censorship boards work with the aim of protecting young people, so while there are many decisions that seem a little preposterous, you can’t deny the importance of a rating system; just imagine if a 12-year-old accidentally watched the shit-eating, chicken-fucking horrors of Pink Flamingos, and I’m sure you’ll agree with the sentiment.
The first NC-17 movie shown in cinemas
The NC-17 rating, which bans anyone under the age of 18 from watching a movie, came about in America in 1990, as a replacement for the X-rating; however, it doesn’t mean a film is going to contain graphic pornography, as many people have often assumed with an X-rating, but rather, it’s anything that is wholly unsuitable for children.
Graphic sex, even if it’s simulated, extreme gore and violence, and other taboo and heavy themes that would probably traumatise a growing brain, all make a movie an NC-17, so, in terms of the first of its kind to be screened in cinemas, it was only fitting that the film was the deeply erotic movie adapted from the queen of taboo, Anaïs Nin. Henry and June, based on her memoir that explored her affair with Henry Miller and her rather sexually-charged interactions with his wife, June, hit theatres with the new rating in 1990, with the film seeing Maria de Medeiros play Nin, with Fred Ward and Uma Thurman playing her romantic interests, and it featured its fair share of naughty content.
Naturally, then, the film was given an NC-17, the first movie to achieve this feat following its establishment, but still, it was more controversial elsewhere, receiving a ban in South Africa for some time, considered to be profoundly shocking and unsuitable. Henry and June is hardly hardcore pornography, although there are enough nude bodies and sex scenes to warrant surprise from certain viewers, but that’s always going to be the case when bare bodies and graphic sex (including girl-on-girl encounters) are involved, though.
