The MPAA In Another Ratings Controversy With G.B.F.

This week a friend of mine's feature film G.B.F., a new high school comedy by Darren Stein, was given an R rating by the MPAA despite the fact that there are no F-bombs in the film and no nudity. The rating was for "sexual references", most of which you can catch on any TV-14 shows on a given night of television. However, the real reason behind this ratings is the MPAA's long-standing unofficial policy of "Instant R" for any film that has leading characters who happen to be gay. I know this from many industry meetings about feature projects of my own that have struggled with financing due to this situation that has unfortunately been around for decades.

Darren took to Facebook to protest the rating and the MPAA's bias against gay stories and characters. Many people were shocked to hear about it and it started a lively discussion in the comments which has now transferred to Gawker, which picked up the story yesterday with a more detailed dissection of exactly what is and isn't in Darren's film. When compared to most PG-13 high school comedies, G.B.F. seems to warrant that level of rating. Its absurd that a film about teens and meant for teens is not able to be watched by the majority of teens simply because there are gay characters. A similar situation happened with the doc BULLY last year .

Darren has been encouraged to appeal the rating but such an appeal is expensive for an indie film and is also no guarantee of a rating change with the incredibly secretive MPAA. But it would at least send a message that as filmmakers, we are not going to take this sort of discrimination anymore when it comes to the restrictive rating simply because characters are gay or lesbian.

Celebrating Obama's Historic Statement On Marriage Equality

President Obama made history yesterday by publicly announcing his support for marriage equality. While there was some grumbling that it took so long and that he has not vowed to make it federal priority, there was also a great deal of joy and excitement that he took to his bully pulpit to take a stand for equal rights for all Americans when it comes to marriage.  The bottom line is that there is no diminishing the historic importance of the President's announcement in support of marriage equality, which remains a highly contentious political issue. There were some comparisons to LBJ's embrace of the civil rights movement (and, famously, its language) when he spoke to Congress in 1964.  

Needless to say, it was a day and night to celebrate.  Some did it offline in New York last night.  While others did it online.  I was delighted to get a link sent to me of a celebratory Tumblr called "When Obama Endorsed Marriage Equality." It's a lively mix of photos and animated GIFs capturing moments of elation, happiness, and sheer joy.  Check it out and celebrate this historic moment before it gets dragged through the mud in the upcoming presidential slog...I mean, campaign. 

Is Anderson Cooper Coming Out For February Sweeps?

There was some heat in the blogosphere on this potential story back in mid-December, when Gawker reported that CNN's Anderson Cooper brought his longtime boyfriend to his holiday party.  A flurry of speculation followed as to a potential coming out episode that would be a part of his daytime talk show.  Since then however, there have not been any new rumors or actual facts. But now that today is February 1st and sweeps are upon us, it seems time to ask the question again and be on the lookout for more clues.

The rumors about Cooper's public coming out began last summer and then heated up in November, when the thinking was he would do it to boost ratings for that sweeps period.  His show has not been doing that great so a week-long Anderson Comes Out extravaganza would certainly garner some eyeballs.  However, Cooper has kinda/sorta been living as a gay man and is seen out on the town with his man (Ben Maisani, above in sunglasses), even though he hasn't publicly made any statement on the subject.  Kathy Griffin certainly has tried to do it for him on their New Year's specials!

Anyway, it would be nice to have Cooper make it official, as some another news anchor did recently.  And, at the least, this sort of gesture for The Gays would do a lot to make up for the embarrassing promo-mercial for Spiderman he did in the middle of CNN's New Years broadcast. That was awful!