A Brief History of Censorship in Film

1. A Brief History of Censorship in Film By: Dustin Peterson

2. Films Beginning First movie was made between 1880 to 1890 First commercial film was called “Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory “ and was produced in 1895. Contained no sound 32 people paid in attendance to witness the birth of Cinema Consisted of 10 short 46 second films First film with sound was in April of 1923 in New York First colored Film appeared in 1922 Black and white was still used predominately until the mid 50’s. • Click here to view First film • Click here for One of the First Colored films • Early Film with Sound

3. A Brief Timeline of the evolution of Censorship 1900 – 1960 First censorship acts enacted in Chicago in 1907 Sparked many cities across the nation to enact their own laws Many Groups such as The Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), heavily lobbied for government regulation of films. In 1915 the Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, the supreme court ruled that films were not covered under the First amendment, thus allowing local governments to continue to censor films. In 1930 the Hays codes are created condemns movies that "lower the moral standards" of viewers and promises that "the sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil, or sin." Movie producers pay little attention to the Code, however. 1945 the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is formed, later to completely reevaluate the Hays Codes. In 1952 in the case of Burstyn v. Wilson, the supreme court for the first time rules that "motion pictures are a significant medium for the communication of ideas," entitled to some First Amendment protection. In 1956 the MPAA initiates a review of certain codes, which results in loosening its prohibitions on the portrayal of drug use, abortion, prostitution, and abortion. The revised code added a prohibition on blasphemy and ridiculing the clergy.

4. Timeline 1960 – present In 1968 the MPAA institutes a nationwide system of voluntary ratings based on the viewer's age, The original ratings are G for General Audiences, M for Mature Audiences, R for 16 and above, unless accompanied by a parent or guardian, and X, under 16 not admitted. 1970s - 1980s The X rating, comes to be associated with pornography. Newspapers and TV refuse advertisements for X-rated movies, and some theaters refuse to screen X-rated movies. 1990 The X rating is replaced by NC-17 to tell art film from pornography. Even with this religious activists pressured large video chains and retailers, such as Blockbuster and Wal-Mart, not to stock NC-17 titles. 1900-Current- While MPAA membership is voluntary, all seven major Hollywood studios submit their films to its rating board. Many Movie theaters will not show films with out an MPAA rating. But there has been a substantial market for non-rated films in the DVD release of some films.

5. Some Pros and Cons of Censoring films Pros Cons • Censoring out pornographic material Prevents young children from inadvertently seeing such images • Allows the filtering of offensive language and action • Upholds the moral values of the people • Helps people who are sensitive to offensive material to be rightfully warned of such material in their films • Puts a hamper on the creative nature of an individual. • Freedom of speech is put in jeopardy • It is sometimes misused for ones own gain • There are many different standards of morals among the people and can be quite different from the imposed ones by the censorship.

6. References Jack Valenti , 2005. How it All Began. http://www.mpaa.org/Ratings_HowItAllBegan.asp Bill Wright. December 3, 2007 . First Movie Ever Made: A History of Film Firsts. Associated Content. Retrieved from: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/461209/the_first_movie_ever_made_a_history_pg3.html?cat=37 Teresa, Koberstein. A brief history of film censorship. Retrieved from http://www.ncac.org/issues/film_censorship.cfm