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 mention a long track record of harsher treatment of queer content but I wish they linked to that data or mentioned a couple comparisons for context.
A quick search finds this … which states
And this from 2014
edit to add link
If someone has institutional access to the research article linked pls share the info!
Who needs institutional access?
Thank you for this. :)