The Hays Code

1. The Hays Code With help from: http://www.pictureshowman.com/articles_genhist_censorship.cfm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code

2. Origins of the Code • From the early days of Hollywood there was concern that movies were a corrupting influence. • Films like Douglas Fairbanks 1916 “Mystery of the Leaping Fish” did little to dispel this fear.

3. The MPPDA • In the absence of Federal laws governing what could and couldn’t be shown on screen, states, cities and towns across the country took censorship into their own hands. • What was acceptable in New York could be very different to what was deemed acceptable in Albuquerque, and films were being chopped up willy nilly. • Following some particularly louche films and a series of off-screen scandals involving Hollywood stars, in 1922 the major Hollywood studios and distributors formed a trade association called The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) and hired former US Postmaster General Will H. Hays to head it up.

4. The Hays Office • They agreed to voluntarily regulate film content, and set up The Studio Relations Committee (SRC) or The Hays Office to oversee and control the moral values of the stories they filmed. • Part of the offices work was to consolidate the various restrictions of different state censors. • In 1927 they produced a list of “Don’ts and Be Carefuls”, but with no penalties for failing to follow this code it wasn’t that effective. • In 1928 only 42 of the 572 films submitted to the various censorship boards passed review uncut.

5. (Not) Enforcing the code • By 1929 “Talking Pictures” had arrived and church groups became even more concerned about the scope for moral corruption due to the pictures. • Fearful of government intervention, on 31 March 1930 the studios adopted a code written by a Jesuit priest – Jim A Lord. • The Motion Picture Production Code(known informally as "The Hays Code"), was published on March 31, 1930 provided for an appointed "jury" (composed of three heads of production chosen from studios who were MPPDA members) that would be the final arbiters of whether a film conformed "to the spirit and letter of the Code". • Determining exactly what the "spirit and letter of the Code" was, however, generated a tremendous amount of debate for the next four years and proved to be an enormous loophole for producers wishing to challenge the guidelines. • A lot of people objected to the ‘Victorianism’ of the code.

6. The Catholic League of Decency • By 1934, church groups were furious at the way the code was being flouted. • The Catholic League of Decency was established and encouraged Catholics to sign a pledge "to remain away from all motion pictures except those which do not offend decency and Christian morality”. The Catholic League of Decency would obvious decide what these films were. • Fearful of what this might do to their audiences, the producers finally acted, and in 1934 an amendment to the code established the Production Code Administration (PCA) and required all films released on or after July 1, 1934, to obtain a certificate of approval before being released.

7. Joseph Breen • A prominent Catholic campaigner, Joseph Breen was put at the head of this office. • The PCA was given the authority to review and delete what it felt was morally objectionable material from both the final script before a movie was shot, and the finished movie before it was released. • A $25,000 fine could be imposed on a company that made changes after the certificate was issued. • Dr Brian McDonnell describes this as “a Jewish industry selling Catholic values to a Protestant audience”.

8. The Code • The Motion Picture Production Code began by stating that, "No picture shall be produced which will lower the moral standards of those who see it." While acknowledging that, "Motion pictures are very important as Art", the Code made it clear that, " . . . the sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin." The Code went on to provide specific moral obligations, working principles, and production guidelines for the treatment of various plots and plot elements.

9. This time, censorship happened

10. Even Betty Boop wasn’t immune • At the Hays Office insistence, she changed from a flirty flapper to a much more demure single career girl.

11. Of particular relevance • Crime must not pay – criminals must be punished. You’re never going to get away with murder. • People who aren’t in conventional happy relationships will come to a bad end – marry and raise a family or die. • Kisses couldn’t last more than a second or two. • Crimes against the law - These shall never be presented in such a way as to throw sympathy with the crime as against law and justice or to inspire others with a desire for imitation. • The sanctity of the institution of marriage and the home shall be upheld. Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing. • Excessive and lustful kissing, lustful embraces, suggestive postures and gestures, are not to be shown Any character who transgresses these traditional sexual and social norms is structurally required by the Hays Code to be punished and repressed in the film’s resolution.

12. The demise of the code • Although by 1940 Code enforcement had become standard operating procedure in America's motion picture industry, there was a gradual weakening of compliance during and after World War II.  • Open resistance to the Code started with a few major independent producers and, at first, focused on pictures (like Noirs) geared to more sophisticated urban audiences. • Filmmakers also became adept at working around the code – what looked fine on the page could be quite different on the screen.

13. The irony of it all • What’s particularly ironic is that much of what makes noir noir is specifically against the Hays code • The sexual tension between the protagonist and the femme fatale • The excessive drinking • Plots that centred around adultery and crime • Ellipsis and innuendo are used to suggest a lot of these things. • Of course what you very seldom see in noir is the protagonists getting away with it. And that just adds to the fatalism that looms over these films. Their destiny is beyond their control. Once they commit a crime they’re on “a trolley car they must ride to the end of the line, and the last stop is the cemetery.” • Myths about censorship