[lbo-talk] Self-Styled Siren on the Hays Code

[Colin Brace]

[..]
The Code was not merely some quaint artifact designed to scrub sex,
bad language and strong violence from the screen. It was explicitly
political, designed to uphold one view of American life and one view
only. Miscegenation was forbidden. So was any mention of birth
control. No abortion. No homosexuality. No venereal disease. No drugs.
But these subjects were risky for a producer in any case, though
certainly some of the topics were broached in Pre-Code movies. No, as
noted in Hollywood Goes to War and elsewhere, by far the most onerous
provisions for filmmakers were those bearing on political and social
themes. Religion and religious figures had to be treated respectfully.
Criminal behavior must be a character defect, not an endemic societal
problem, much less could social institutions be shown or implied to be
criminal or corrupt as a whole. Bad deeds must be punished, and we
must never sympathize too much with the bad-deed-doer, no matter the
motivation or circumstances. Not that the Code bothered to censor
certain aspects of American mores that we find distasteful today. The
authors acidly note that Howard Hawks' Air Force depicted the
intrinsic disloyalty of all Japanese Americans (or "stinkin' Nips," as
the script puts it), and added a tasteful "Fried Jap going down!" when
a plane is shot down. Breen passed all that, but carefully excised the
forbidden word "lousy."*

The idea that the Code made films "better" is wrongheaded. It's often
argued that censorship made movies more subtle, that it forced more
creativity from directors and screenwriters who had to labor under its
provisions. Force Picasso to get more creative by restricting him to
an Etch-a-Sketch and hey, he's still Picasso, and maybe his stuff
looks BETTER that way, you know, more SUBTLE.

Well, first of all, the "blossom under censorship" argument presumes
that films made during the height of the Code (1934 to about 1954) are
better than those made before the Code's strict enforcement, or after
it withered away. [...]

full: http://selfstyledsiren.blogspot.com/2008/01/code-nostalgia-insane-inane-and.html

-- 

  Colin Brace

  Amsterdam