Kevin Smith Is Appealing R-Rating The MPAA Gave Yoga Hosers

You’d think Kevin Smith would eventually get tired of appeals screenings with the Motion Picture Association fo America, but he’s headed for his fourth one soon.

Videos by ComicBook.com

Yoga-Hosers, which Smith describes as a “goofy, girl-power monster movie,” has been rated R, ostensibly for a drawing of genitals which appears on a library book in the movie.

Smith will appeal the rating in the hopes of getting a PG-13, which will allow the young, female audience he hopes to court with the film a chance to see it.

You can see a lengthy entry on the topic below, via Smith’s Instagram.

The #MPAA gave my kids movie @YogaHosers an R rating for a cartoony drawing of testicles on a book cover. So now, for the 4th time in my 22 year career, we will hold an appeals screening with the Motion Picture Association of America’s ratings board and try to get the R overturned for a less severe (and far more appropriate) PG-13. I also ran afoul of the MPAA the first time I made a movie set in a convenience store, when they initially slapped Clerks with an NC-17 rating for language. Back then, Harvey Weinstein hired mega-lawyer Alan Dershowitz and turned our rating appeal into a Free Speech case. But on the day of the actual appeals screening, it was just me and the Miramax lawyer getting up in front of the appeals folks to argue for a less restrictive rating without having to change or trim any shots. We won that day and Clerks received the R rating without a single cut. The next two occasions I fought an MPAA rating was on Jersey Girl (won a PG-13 instead of the R they gave us) and Zack and Miri Make a Porno (which went from an NC-17 to an R, without cuts). I don’t mind doing this dance with the MPAA a fourth time (hey – at least they even OFFER an appeals screening) but this #YogaHosers R rating is riDONKulous. The core audience for the flick is tween girls (it’s Clueless meets Gremlins!), so I refrained from salty language to make a totally kid-friendly movie. And while it’s a “horror” movie, there’s no blood on display: when our Bratzi bad guys get killed, concentrated sauerkraut explodes everywhere – not guts or entrails. Honestly, this movie is TAME (or “lame” according to some reviews). Even so, next week I’ll screen the flick for the MPAA appeals audience and, lawyer-like, plead my case for why the film is really PG-13 – all so that I can keep the graffiti drawing of nuts on a fictional library book in my goofy girl-power monster movie. Weird life. Mind you, this is NOT a First Amendment issue at all; instead, it’s the very definition of a First World Problem. But before I can tour the movie in June & July and release it in theaters this August, I’m gonna have to win #TheBattleForTheBalls! #KevinSmith #harleyquinnsmith #lilyrosedepp #johnnydepp

A photo posted by Kevin Smith (@thatkevinsmith) on Apr 18, 2016 at 12:12pm PDT

The film, which is currently making the rounds on the festival circuit, will go out on tour with Kevin Smith over the summer, ahead of a planned theatrical release. It’s a follow-up to the hard-R Tusk.

In Smith’s career, he’s argued down two NC-17 ratings to R-ratings (both without cuts made to the film) and an R to a PG-13.