The Naked Truth: Showgirls and the Fateof the X/NC-17 Rating

In 1990, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) replaced the X rating with the NC-17 category—No Children 17 and under Admitted. The new designation took effect immediately and was copyrighted so that adult filmmakers—-who appropriated the X for pornography in 1968—could no longer unilaterally apply it to their films. MGM/UA's Henry & June became the first major studio film to receive the outermost rating since 1979. The NC-17's immediate inheritance of the veneer of the X rating, and the subsequent box-office failure of Showgirls (1995), reaffirmed the economic liability of the rating system's adults-only category.