Love Is Strange: People Are Stranger

The MPAA [Motion Picture Association Of America] movie ratings are supposed to provide information on a movie's content, so parents can decide whether or not it's suitable for their children.

But what kind of information are they really providing? And what are they assuming we want to protect our children from? ...

[Opening this weekend] is "Love Is Strange." There is no nudity. There are no sexual situations. The drug or alcohol material mostly consists of adults having wine with dinner, or cocktails at a bar. There is no violence or gore. There are several scenes of men kissing, and two scenes of a gay couple sleeping together, fully clothed, in bed. It is rated R ['Not appropriate for people under 17 unless accompanied by a guardian']...

Not only is there nothing violent in "Love Is Strange," there's not even anything explicit. It is about as mild and mainstream a portrayal of gay life as you can imagine. Ben, played by John Lithgow, is a 71-year-old retiree. George, played by Alfred Molina, is a music teacher at a Catholic school. In the film, they have been together for nearly 40 years (until, in a unfair and sudden reversal of fortune, they lose their apartment).

It's a simple human story. And it is very hard to imagine that — if it starred, say, Robert Duvall and Jane Fonda as a similar long-time couple suddenly facing homelessness — it would be lumped in with movies crammed full of queasily stylish sexism and sickening torture porn. This is a gentle, if often heartbreaking story about two loving men in a long-time committed relationship. What on earth is in it that so horrifies the MPAA?

I'm sorry. I think I just answered my own question.

Stephen Whitty, The Star-Ledger Via Queerty.

This got picked up everywhere, here's The Guardian saying it's HOMOPHOBIA!

Can't say I'm totally convinced by this, sounds more like someone (1) at MPAA just being dumb.

And Whitty's conclusion that it was picked on cause it's a 'story about two loving men in a long-time committed relationship' is dumber still.

Cause dull heteronormativity is so threatening, yeah?

Queerty used this story as an excuse to run quotes from 17 straight actors talking about playing a gay character. So brave etc etc...

PS Love Is Strange is the most romantic movie of the year, Slate. Chances of Fagburn watching it now - zero.