Many summer movies this year suck. Beyond the moronic and monotonous, many flicks are being heavily edited to avoid an NC-17 rating. Production companies are more scared of releasing a motion picture with that cement boot rating than they are of making a JFK Jr. joke a day too early.

Directors have always had to wrangle with the debate between artistic and financial integrity.

It seems this summer is seeing more than its share of movies that have had to beg and plead to be given that magical R rating. “Eyes Wide Shut,” “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut” and “American Pie” are flicks that were heavily edited to appease the morality of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

What I don’t understand is why a production company won’t stand up, show some Superman-style balls of steel, spit in the face of the MPAA and its ridiculous ratings board, and release a big-time film such as “Eyes Wide Shut” with an NC-17 rating.

Maybe it would drive home the message to namby-pamby movie execs that there are some motion pictures that can not be homogenized to save our youth from the perils of free thinking.

A lot of fuss has been made about the digitally remastered orgy scene in Kubrick’s final film. Most intelligent reviewers have correctly noted that the dark figures blocking the actual sex acts occurring during that scene are distracting and hurt the scene.

These digital additions were made because the MPAA’s ratings board required them for the film to receive an R rating.

If the studio had decided to throw caution to the wind and flip the ratings board the finger, “Eyes Wide Shut” would have been penalized with an NC-17 tag. Perhaps that would have sounded the death knoll for the movie at the box office, but I doubt it. The pull to see Kubrick’s parting cinematic shot and to watch Nicole Kidman get all freaky is box-office gold.

This would have been a perfect opportunity to prove to the world that movies with adult themes made for adults can be released with an NC-17 rating and succeed financially.

But in all reality, I don’t think this should have to be so damn sneaky. The problem really isn’t the studio execs, it’s the complete idiocy of the MPAA’s ratings board.

The board was established in 1968 to label how appropriate films are for certain ages.

The problem with the MPAA’s ratings system is two-fold.

First off, the ratings need to be more accurate and representative. As good as a movie as “Eyes Wide Shut” is, the R rating would technically allow parents to take their kids to see it. Anyone who would take his kids to see “Eyes Wide Shut” should be prosecuted for child abuse. It’s an adult movie and should have an NC-17 rating.

If they would give out NC-17 ratings where they are due, we wouldn’t run into the problem of editing content to save the benjamins.

What they really need to do is establish a new rating that would mean the same thing as NC-17, but with a different abbreviation so it doesn’t freak out the public and studio bigwigs.

I suggest handing out DCR(my initials) ratings to movies that are mature in nature, should not be seen by high-schoolers and don’t make your average adult vomit.

The second thing wrong with the ratings system is the people that sit on the ratings board.

The MPAA Website states, “There are no special qualifications for board membership, except members must have a shared parental experience, must be possessed by an intelligent maturity and, most of all, have the capacity to put themselves in the role of most American parents.”

The whole concept behind the ratings board is to throw together a bunch of parents to decide what the film-viewing public gets to see on the silver screen.

I understand putting a group of parents in charge of a rating system to protect kids, but MPAA ratings don’t do that anyway. Show me a 16 year-old who hasn’t been to an R-rated movie without a parent, and I’ll show you a 16 year-old who still thinks silk shirts are the key to getting the lady folk.

What the MPAA really should do is scrap the parents and hire psychologists. If they want to protect children, let’s get people who know what images are too disturbing for innocent peepers.

You’ll find a little sex isn’t too terrible — and maybe a head split open by a shotgun is.

The film industry is ready for a shake-down so in classic tradition, we’ll see progress in about 20 years. Until then, the last quality American export, motion pictures, is going to suffer.

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David Roepke is a junior in journalism and mass communications from Aurora, Iowa. He is head news editor of the Daily.