When adapting the 2019 LGBTQ romantic novel Red, White & Royal Blue for the screen, Matthew Lopez was careful to circumvent an R-rating. The film has a handful of sex scenes that stop short of full-frontal nudity — there’s some bare butts and, naturally, shirtless men.
But it wasn’t enough. Red, White & Royal Blue was rated R, meaning people under 17 would need to be accompanied by a parent or guardian to see it.
Another recent film with LGBTQ leads, the French romantic drama Passages, received an even harsher NC-17 rating, which would restrict people under 18 from seeing the film at all, and also keep it from playing in certain theatres.
They are ultimately the lesser evil. The entertainment industry self regulates age ratings without government interference, because if they didn’t, the government would be regulating them instead. Though they do cave to political pressures such as in this instance to keep the government from having a reason to regulate them, their policies aren’t US law, and are therefore much easier to change to adjust with the times than having to go through Congress or a federal agency