This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)

Kimberly Peirce: Self - Director of 'Boys Don't Cry'

Quotes 

• Self - Director of 'Boys Don't Cry' : My film was very autobiographical, it was very reflective of many of the girls that I knew in downtown New York who were passing as men, so I was in my editing room and I got a call from my producer and he said 'we have some bad news you got an NC-17' and I was like 'that's great, cause I thought 'oh, NC-17' all the films that I love have, you know, oh that used to be an X. They were like 'no that's not good and I was like 'well, why?' and they said 'well cause the studio won't release your movie, if it has an NC17. I was so floored to have worked so hard against all the obstacles of no money and all the obstacles of people saying you cant make a movie like this it doesn't make sense getting the audiences to love it at that point and then to have this unknown board that was apparently doing it for the filmmaker right, cause that is is kinda the whole mahantra saying that I couldn't have my meeting it just it was just like being shut out from a system more like it was like 'wait let me talk to you' this can't make - this isn't right', so I said to my lawyer so what was the, were the counts, you know the problems, well, there were three. We, um, after Brandon goes down Lana, he comes up and he wipes the cum off his mouth, um, so we had a strike on that I said okay, whats the problem? 'Well we don't really know but that's really offensive' so I was like, so I shoot Brandon in the head and I do all of these things to him and that fundamentally okay but this is thres a problem here, yes, can somebody explain that, no. Is there anybody I can call, no. Okay, what's the second one? The anal rape. They wanted me to cut it out, and I was like 'well I'm not cutting it out. That's just inherent to the movie. So what's the third thing? Well, Lana's orgasm is too long and I was like okay well, so who's ever been hurt by an orgasm that was too long? 'Well, it's offensive'. and I was like that's outrageous. So when I looked at Lana's orgasm I was like, 'oh, this is totally about Lana's pleasure'. So there's something about that scaring them, that's unnerving them.

  Interviewer : Well, why do you think they had a problem with it?

  Self - Director of 'Boys Don't Cry' : With female pleasure?

  Interviewer : Yeah.

  Self - Director of 'Boys Don't Cry' : Well, in a contract where most movies are written by men, directed by men, um, they're mostly the male experience. So I think that I think that even in sex scenes, I think that it's from a male perspective so I don't think that the focus is female pleasure. I think that female pleasure is a natural. I think that female pleasure is scary, um, in the kind of narrative setting, so I think that if you're a woman who understands female pleasure and understands it from you know, the woman's perspective, you're probably going into terrain that's unfamiliar so, when I think generally unfamiliar areas is what breeds these NC-17s.