Have you ever wondered why Hollywood movies used to be so different? Or maybe why there were not any on-screen same-sex relationships? Or any interracial relationships? Back in 1930, the Motion Picture Production Code took effect and censored Hollywood for nearly four decades! Let's take a closer look at the Motion Picture Production Code and its restrictions!
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Jetzt kostenlos anmeldenHave you ever wondered why Hollywood movies used to be so different? Or maybe why there were not any on-screen same-sex relationships? Or any interracial relationships? Back in 1930, the Motion Picture Production Code took effect and censored Hollywood for nearly four decades! Let's take a closer look at the Motion Picture Production Code and its restrictions!
Here are some key definitions we need to know:
The Hays Code
The Motion Picture Production Code was more commonly called the Hays Code and created a set of guidelines for the film industry. These guidelines prohibited movies from exhibiting profane language, nudity, most violence, and rape, among other restrictions.
Queer Coding
When a character in media is implied to be queer but not directly confirmed to be queer.
Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA)
The group that regulated what could and could not be shown in movies.
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
The group that reviews the ratings that we use for movies today.
In the 1920s and early 1930s, American cinema attracted people by showing movies that were considered "immoral" by church officials. These movies showed nudity, violence, illegal drugs, cigarette smoking (by men and women), and other behaviors that were deemed immoral during the 1920s. Church leaders and politicians began to believe that viewing the movies would make Americans immoral.
The 1920s were the era of Prohibition, which means that alcohol was illegal. Many of these movies depicted men and women drinking! Characters committed crimes, shot at each other, and did drugs.
Crime rates in America had risen, and the government wanted to blame movies for influencing people. It was more likely that crime rates were high because alcohol was illegal, which gave rise to the American mobster and speakeasies. In 1920, the rate of murders in America was just over six percent. Only a decade later, that number had risen to almost nine percent!
Speakeasy
A secret bar during Prohibition
Not only were illegal activities rampant in the film industry, but so were sex and scandals! An example of how the film industry was gaining an immoral reputation is the scandal that surrounded the death of Virginia Rappe.
The death of Virginia Rappe
One of the final straws came with Hollywood's first large scandal. Virginia Rappe, an up-and-coming actor, was found in the hotel room of a famous actor, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, on 5 September 1921. Rappe went to one of Arbuckle's infamous hotel parties. Arbuckle found the actress on his floor and tried to assist her. Partygoers came in and eventually called a doctor. The doctor diagnosed Rappe with "hysteria" gave her morphine then left. Arbuckle left the next day, and Rappe remained at the hotel for three days on morphine before going to the hospital and then dying of a ruptured bladder.
A partygoer named Maude Delmont accused Arbuckle of sexually assaulting and murdering Rappe. While it was proven that Delmont was trying to blackmail Arbuckle and that he had nothing to do with the death of Rappe, Arbuckle's career was ruined and Hollywood almost went down with it.
Lawmakers began to push censorship regulated by individual states, whose laws could change quickly. One movie might regularly be switched from approved to banned between states.
Hollywood realized that if its movies were going to do well, it had to censor itself before the government could intervene. Will H. Hays, a Presbyterian, became the president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) in 1922. During the series of scandals and censorship, Hays had written the Motion Picture Production Code in 1930, but no one took it seriously and many films were released without the Code being enforced. With the appointment of Joseph Breen in 1934, the Hays Code was enforced widely, changing the nature of Hollywood films until its abolishment in 1968.
The Hays Code has many rules about what film could and could not do. Some of these rules are expected, but others are extreme. Let's begin with the reasonable rules and make our way to the extreme ones. The picture below was designed to show directors what can't be in movies.
These rules were reasonable by the standards of the 1930s. They may seem extreme to us today, but these are the easiest to digest. Criminals always had to be the bad guys and punished for their crimes.
Movies could not show how crimes were committed because they might teach criminals how to commit crimes. If a thief hot-wired a car, then it could not look anything like how someone might actually hot-wire a car. Guns could not be pointed at people or the camera. Illegal drugs were banned as well.
A big concern was children seeing inappropriate actions and then replicating them. People didn't want kids to see bank robbers in the movies and then become bank robbers themselves.
There could be no hints of sex. There could be no nudity, sex, women's cleavage, or silhouettes of naked bodies. Men and women could not share a bed even if they were married! Women's cleavage could not be shown either, popular characters like Betty Boop had to have modest makeovers so that they passed the code.
Another example of the MPPC in action is with the re-editing of the 1932 film, Babyface.
Babyface (1932)
The main character of Babyface was played by Barbara Stanwyck. Stanwyck was young and seductive in this movie. Her character performs sexual favors for men as she climbed the corporate ladder. In the end, she was able to land her love interests and live a happy life. The movie had to be reshot so that Stanwyck's character was properly punished for her promiscuity. Instead, she ends up poor and alone. The reshoot punished women for being sexual. This was a common theme during the era of the Hays Code.
Under the MPPC, interracial couples were banned; they could not kiss or have any other sort of intimate scene. White people could never be depicted as enslaved people, though depicting black people could be. Early we saw that there could be no nudity, this did not apply to indigenous women who the code permitted to be shown naked.
The first interracial kiss would not be until 1957 in Island in the Sun.
When indigenous women's bare chests were depicted it was fine because it was for "educational purposes", but by that standard all nudity would have been fine. The racial disparity demonstrates that the exception to nudity in certain circumstances was to reinforce racist ideas.
There could be no "sexual perversions", which was Hays' way of saying that queer depictions were banned. Directors could imply characters were gay and often did so. This was called queer coding, gay people watching would understand what was going on, but straight people often did not.
However, queer coding didn't protect characters from being punished. They would often die or were severely punished by the end of the film. Queer characters couldn't have a happily ever after because the Hays Code and its censor board reinforced homophobic agendas.
Directors were not pleased with the Hays Code. It restricted the art that they were trying to make. Supporters of the Hays Code would say that it was self-censoring and completely voluntary. If directors disliked it so much, then they didn't have to follow it. This was not completely true. While directors could ignore the code, if they did not follow it, their movies would not be supported by the MPPDA or be played in theaters.
To make matters worse, foreign movies could not be censored by the MPPDA. In 1948, an Italian movie called L'amore debuted in New York. In the second half of the movie, a woman prays to Saint Joseph and is miraculously pregnant, like the Virgin Mary. This movie was called blasphemous and banned until a 1952 Supreme Court case ruled that movies are protected by the Fifth Amendment: freedom of speech.
Blasphemous
Lacking respect for God or sacred things.
An example of how directors pushed back against the Hays Code can be seen with Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959).
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Some Like it Hot (1959), starring Marilyn Monroe, was about two jazz musicians who witness the mafia murder a man. To escape the mafia, they pretend to be women and play in an all-women jazz band. One of the men falls in love with Monroe, while the other has a millionaire boyfriend. When the millionaire realizes the Jazz player is a man, he responds with, "Well, nobody's perfect".
Some Like it Hot broke so many of the Hays Code rules, yet it was a box office success. Not only were directors changing, but so were movie-goers.
The MPPDA could not restrict television or foreign films and Americans were tired of the MPPDA trying to. They felt that the MPPDA was attempting to decide for the public what was and was not good. In 1968, the Hays Code was abandoned and the MPPDA rebranded as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Instead of policing movies, the MPAA would rate them after they were released.
The Motion Picture Production Code was meant to censor movies and encourage Americans to behave in a specific manner. Directors and film creators felt that their art form was being stifled, but to go against it meant that their movies wouldn't show in theaters. Theaters are the place where most movies made profits, so film studios wouldn't risk investing in movies that didn't pass censorship.
After enough pushback by some directors, and the uncensored foreign films, the Hays Code was eventually made obsolete and allowed much greater freedoms for the film industry. This change to films throughout the 20th century parallels the general cultural shift seen in America following the Great Depression and the move away from conservatism in the following decades.
The Motion Picture Production Code was used to regulate movies from 1930-1968.
The Motion Picture Production Code was used to regulate movies from 1930-1968.
The Motion Picture Production Code was used to regulate movies from 1930-1968.
The Motion Picture Production Code was used to regulate movies from 1930-1968.
The Motion Picture Production Code banned sex, nudity, cleavage, childbirth, interracial couples, queer people, white people depicted as slaves, and more!
Who wrote the Motion Picture Production Code?
Will H. Hays
Which actor was the final straw for people pushing to censor movies?
Fatty Arbuckle
Which of the following is not one of the Hays Code?
No Nudity
What is it called when a character is implied to be queer but not confirmed to be?
Queer Coding
What is another name for the Motion Picture Production Code?
Hays Code
Which group regulated what could be shown in movies?
Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA)
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