I touched on the ratings controversy surrounding Slumdog Millionaire at the end of my one-on-one interview with Danny Boyle, but I also recently exchanged a couple emails with friend and colleague Wade Major, who gave good voice to the ire and irritation surrounding the R rating with which the film is saddled. The capper of his response is excerpted below:

“I’ve been screaming about the racism factor in the decisions of CARA (Classification and Rating Administration) for years. It’s been unbelievably evident, time and time again. And in fairness, it has far less to do with racism than with cultural parochialism, as you could also make the case for Billy Elliott, as family-friendly a film as has ever been made. I’m sorry, but “Fuck” is about as offensive to people in Yorkshire as “Dang.” CARA doesn’t get that. Their primary motivation is not, as Jack Valenti always claimed, providing information for parents. Their goal is to keep government censors at bay, so they zero in on anything that a morality mandarin might flip out over… regardless of context or common sense. And more often than not, that ends up putting a lot of foreign films on unequal footing, particularly Asian films. They’ve never been able to wrap their heads around some of the stuff in Hong Kong movies, and the fact that someone running around with a hatchet in his back can, in context, be fun and/or funny. To them, it’s straight out of Friday the 13th. Fuckers.”