Harding and former head of the Republican National Committee, to rehabilitate Hollywood's image. Hays, Postmaster General under former President Warren G. In 1922, as they were faced with the prospect of having to comply with hundreds and potentially thousands of inconsistent, easily changed decency laws in order to show their films, the studios chose self-regulation as the preferable option, enlisting Presbyterian elder Will H. Many felt that the film industry had always been morally questionable, and political pressure was increasing, with legislators in 37 states introducing almost one hundred film censorship bills in 1921. In the 1920s, Hollywood was rocked by a number of notorious scandals, such as the murder of William Desmond Taylor and the alleged rape of Virginia Rappe by popular movie star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, which brought widespread condemnation from religious, civic and political organizations.
Thou Shalt Not, a 1940 photo by Whitey Schafer deliberately subverting the Code's strictures In 1968, after several years of minimal enforcement, the Production Code was replaced by the MPAA film rating system. The film industry followed the guidelines set by the code well into the late 1950s, but it began to weaken, owing to the combined impact of television, influence from foreign films, controversial directors (such as Otto Preminger) pushing boundaries, and intervention from the courts, including the US Supreme Court. The Production Code spelled out acceptable and unacceptable content for motion pictures produced for a public audience in the United States.įrom 1934 to 1954, the code was closely identified with Joseph Breen, the administrator appointed by Hays to enforce the code in Hollywood. Under Hays's leadership, the MPPDA, later the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Motion Picture Association (MPA), adopted the Production Code in 1930 and began rigidly enforcing it in 1934. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) from 1922 to 1945. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Will H. The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968.
0 kommentar(er)
