What is the history of the NC-17 rating, and how did it evolve from the X-rating?
When the MPAA initiated the ratings system in 1968, they trademarked all the categories except for X. If you wanted your film rated, you went to the MPAA, but if you were willing to accept an X rating, you just slapped that baby on your film and went to town, and X instantly became synonymous with porn. Cinemas, TV stations, newspapers, shopping malls, even whole towns jumped in to solidify the situation by outlawing X-rated fare. So a ratings system which was supposed to be merely a guide for parents to indicate if a film was appropriate for their children became a de facto method of censorship. Porn producers raised the stakes, first with XX product, then XXX and finally the uber-porn designation, Quadruple-X. (XXXXX has been tried, but in this reporter’s opinion, after years of research, no film ever truly qualified.) So, because everybody thought there should be a category for grown-up films that weren’t porn but probably shouldn’t be seen by drooling pre-adolescents and screaming
