Apparently our soldiers in Iraq are too crude for children. Does that mean that they're too crude for Iraqi children too?
Chris Blackwell's Palm Pictures today announced that it plans to appeal the Motion Picture Association of America's (MPAA) "R" rating for its upcoming release about American soldiers in Iraq, GUNNER PALACE.More importantly, the Motion Picture Association of America is pre-emptively censoring itself as a cave to the religious right. They're sending a message to the country that our soldiers fighting in Iraq are somehow too dirty and disgusting and vulgar for impressionable high school age kids to see. Which is funny, when you think about it, since the military is allowed to try to entice high school kids to join the military after they reach the age of 17. So, it's okay to try to convince underage kids to JOIN the military once they graduate, but don't you dare show them WHAT THEY'LL ACTUALLY BEING DOING ONCE THEY JOIN.
The MPAA has given the film an "R" rating based solely on "language". Co-Director Michael Tucker spent two months in Iraq living with the Army's 2/3 Field Artillery. With total access to all operations and activities, GUNNER PALACE reveals the inside story of 400 American soldiers (aka: "Gunners") carrying out their mission from a bombed-out pleasure palace originally built by Sadaam Hussein and later home to his son Uday. In the film, soldiers are shown experiencing and responding to the war around them.
How's that for screwed up values.
