SOME HISTORY ON FILM CENSORSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES? (In the Entertainment industry.)

Film Censorship / Photo Credit: Fotolia

SOME HISTORY ON FILM CENSORSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES? (In the Entertainment industry.)  

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Some history on film censorship in the United States? 

 The right to free speech is a long-standing US tradition, but actually respecting the right to free speech is not. According to the ACLU, censorship is "the suppression of words, images or ideas that are "offensive," and it happens "whenever some people succeed in imposing their personal political or moral values on others." Our freedom of expression may be limited, says the ACLU, "only if it will clearly cause direct and imminent harm to an important societal interest."

Among the most debated aspects of film culture are issues of censorship and control. Many controversial films have been cut or banned by censorship bodies or local or state authorities. Yet it would be wrong to see film censorship as largely the removal and prohibition of whole movies or specific images. Film censors tend to see themselves as classifiers, administering certificates that aim to control the type of audience that sees a particular movie. If they lack such a certificate, some films' reception is restricted; studios or distributors can also act to prohibit a film by withdrawing it from circulation for contractual, legal, or political reasons. The controlling of the film image is most noticeable after production, but a significant amount of the regulation occurs during production moreover in the preproduction stages. In the classical period of film production (between the 1930s and the 1960s), films were often censored during the script stage, with studios removing content that could potentially run afoul of the censors. Studios were keen to comply with censors to avoid the expense of making cuts as well as delays in the film's release.

It is not just the content of film that is regulated, with all areas of film culture coming under scrutiny. This ranges from the granting of an exhibition license to permitted modes of promotion, publicity, and merchandising (the content and nature of posters and trailers and the suitability of associated toys). The pervasiveness of film culture also means that movies are more than just cinema screenings; the censorship and regulation of film is present in other areas of exhibition, where a particular production can experience an alternative reception. For instance, a film may be cut for language or scenes of an unsuitable nature when it is shown as in-flight entertainment, made available for DVD home rental, or broadcast later on television. In the United Kingdom, editing swear words for television is known as "funstering," allegedly after British television's first screening of Lethal Weapon (1987), when "Let's get the fuckers!" was replaced with "Let's get the funsters!" In terms of film content, though, the more common concerns are screen violence, sex, and sex crime.

Film censorship in the United States was a frequent feature of the industry since almost the beginning of the motion picture industry until the end of strong self-regulation in 1966. Court rulings in the 1950s and 1960s severely constrained government censorship, though statewide regulation lasted until at least the 1980s.

State and local censorship, from pre-code to post-code

The censorship dates to an 1897 statute of Maine that prohibited the exhibition of prizefight films. Maine enacted the statute to prevent the exhibition of the 1897 heavyweight championship between James J. Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons. Some other states followed the example of Maine.

Chicago enacted the first censorship ordinance in the United States in 1907, authorizing its police chief to screen all films to determine whether they should be permitted on screens. Detroit followed the same year. When upheld in a court challenge in 1909, other cities followed and Pennsylvania became the first to enact state-wide censorship of movies in 1911 (though it did not fund the effort until 1914). It was soon followed by Ohio (1914), Kansas (1915), Maryland (1916), New York (1921) and, finally, Virginia (1922). Eventually, at least one hundred cities across the nation empowered local censorship boards.

In 1915, the US Supreme Court decided the case Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio in which the court determined that motion pictures were purely commerce and not an art and so not covered by the First Amendment. This decision was not overturned until the Supreme Court case, Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson in 1952. Popularly referred to as the "Miracle Decision", the ruling involved the short film "The Miracle", part of Roberto Rossellini's anthology film L'Amore (1948).

Between the Mutual Film and the Joseph Burstyn decisions, local, state, and city censorship boards had the power to edit or ban films. City and state censorship ordinances are nearly as old as the movies themselves, and such ordinances banning the public exhibition of "immoral" films proliferated.

Seven states formed film censorship boards, which both pre-dated and outlasted the Hays Code:

Pennsylvania State Board of Censors (1914-1956; 1959-1961)

Ohio Board of Censors (1914-1955)

Maryland State Board of Censors (1916-1981, the last to be abolished)

Kansas State Board of Review (1915-1966)

New York State Censorship Board (1921-1965)

Virginia State Board of Censors (1922-1968)

Production Code

Public outcry over perceived immorality in Hollywood and the movies, as well as the growing number of city and state censorship boards, led the movie studios to fear that federal regulations were not far off; so they created, in 1922, the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association (which became the Motion Picture Association of America in 1945), an industry trade and lobby organization. The association was headed by Will H. Hays, a well-connected Republican lawyer who had previously been United States Postmaster General; and he derailed attempts to institute federal censorship over the movies.

In 1927, Hays compiled a list of subjects, culled from his experience with the various US censorship boards, which he felt Hollywood studios would be wise to avoid. He called this list "the formula" but it was popularly known as the "don'ts and be careful" list. In 1930, Hays created the Studio Relations Committee (SRC) to implement his censorship code, but the SRC lacked any real enforcement capability.

The advent of talking pictures in 1927 led to a perceived need for further enforcement. Martin Quigley, the publisher of a Chicago-based motion picture trade newspaper, began lobbying for a more extensive code that not only listed material that was inappropriate for the movies, but also contained a moral system that the movies could help to promote - specifically a system based on Catholic theology. He recruited Father Daniel Lord, a Jesuit priest and instructor at the Catholic St. Louis University, to write such a code and on March 31, 1930 the board of directors of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association adopted it formally. This original version especially was once popularly known as the Hays Code, but it and its later revisions are now commonly called the Production Code.

However, Depression economics and changing social mores resulted in the studios producing racier fare that the Code, lacking an aggressive enforcement body, was unable to redress. This era is known as Pre-Code Hollywood.

An amendment to the Code, adopted on June 13, 1934, 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. For more than thirty years following, virtually all motion pictures produced in the United States and released by major studios adhered to the code. The Production Code was not created or enforced by federal, state, or city government. In fact, the Hollywood studios adopted the code in large part in the hopes of avoiding government censorship, preferring self-regulation to government regulation.

The enforcement of the Production Code led to the dissolution of many local censorship boards. Meanwhile, the US Customs Department prohibited the importation of the Czech film Ecstasy (1933), starring an actress soon to be known as Hedy Lamarr, an action which was upheld on appeal.

In 1934, Joseph I. Breen (1888–1965) was appointed head of the new Production Code Administration (PCA). Under Breen's leadership of the PCA, which lasted until his retirement in 1954, enforcement of the Production Code became rigid and notorious. Breen's power to change scripts and scenes angered many writers, directors, and Hollywood moguls. The PCA had two offices, one in Hollywood, and the other in New York City. Films approved by the New York PCA office were issued certificate numbers that began with a zero.

The first major instance of censorship under the Production Code involved the 1934 film Tarzan and His Mate, in which brief nude scenes involving a body double for actress Maureen O'Sullivan were edited out of the master negative of the film. Another famous case of enforcement involved the 1943 western The Outlaw, produced by Howard Hughes. The Outlaw was denied a certificate of approval and kept out of theaters for years because the film's advertising focused particular attention on Jane Russell's breasts. Hughes eventually persuaded Breen that the breasts did not violate the code and the film could be shown.

Some films produced outside the mainstream studio system during this time did flout the conventions of the code, such as Child Bride (1938), which featured a nude scene involving 12-year-old actress Shirley Mills. Even cartoon sex symbol Betty Boop had to change from being a flapper, and began to wear an old-fashioned housewife skirt.

In 1936, Arthur Mayer and Joseph Burstyn attempted to distribute Whirlpool of Desire, a French film originally titled Remous and directed by Edmond T. Greville. The legal battle lasted until November 1939, when the film was released in the U.S.

In 1952, in the case of Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overruled its 1915 decision and held that motion pictures were entitled to First Amendment protection, so that the New York State Board of Regents could not ban "The Miracle", a short film that was one half of L'Amore (1948), an anthology film directed by Roberto Rossellini. Film distributor Joseph Burstyn released the film in the U.S. in 1950, and the case became known as the "Miracle Decision" due to its connection to Rossellini's film. That in turn reduced the threat of government regulation that justified the Production Code, and the PCA's powers over the Hollywood industry were greatly reduced.

At the forefront of challenges to the code was director Otto Preminger, whose films violated the code repeatedly in the 1950s. His 1953 film The Moon is Blue, about a young woman who tries to play two suitors off against each other by claiming that she plans to keep her virginity until marriage, was the first film since the pre-code Hollywood days to use the words "virgin", "seduce" and "mistress", and it was released without a certificate of approval. He later made The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), which portrayed the prohibited subject of drug abuse, and Anatomy of a Murder (1959) which dealt with rape. Preminger's films were direct assaults on the authority of the Production Code and, since they were successful, hastened its abandonment.

In 1954, Joseph Breen retired and Geoffrey Shurlock was appointed as his successor. Variety noted "a decided tendency towards a broader, more casual approach" in the enforcement of the code.

Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959) and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) were also released without a certificate of approval due to their themes and became box office hits, and as a result further weakened the authority of the code.

The Pawnbroker and the end of the Code

In the early 1960s, British films such as Victim (1961), A Taste of Honey (1961), and The Leather Boys (1963) offered a daring social commentary about gender roles and homophobia that violated the Hollywood Production Code, yet the films were still released in America. The American women's rights, gay rights, civil rights, and youth movements prompted a reevaluation of the depiction of themes of race, class, gender, and sexuality that had been restricted by the Code. In addition, the growing popularity of international films with more explicit content helped to discredit the Code.

In 1964 The Pawnbroker, directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Rod Steiger, was initially rejected because of two scenes in which the actresses Linda Geiser and Thelma Oliver fully expose their breasts; and a sex scene between Oliver and Jaime Sánchez, which it described as "unacceptably sex suggestive and lustful." Despite the rejection, the film's producers arranged for Allied Artists to release the film without the Production Code seal and the New York censors licensed The Pawnbroker without the cuts demanded by Code administrators. The producers also appealed the rejection to the Motion Picture Association of America.

On a 6-3 vote, the MPAA granted the film an "exception" conditional on "reduction in the length of the scenes which the Production Code Administration found unprovable." The exception to the Code was granted as a "special and unique case," and was described by The New York Times as "an unprecedented move that will not, however, set a precedent." The requested reductions of nudity were minimal, and the outcome was viewed in the media as a victory for the film's producers. The Pawnbroker was the first film since pre-code era featuring bare breasts to receive Production Code approval. In his 2008 study of films during that era, Pictures at a Revolution, author Mark Harris wrote that the MPAA's action was "the first of a series of injuries to the Production Code that would prove fatal within three years."

When Jack Valenti became President of the MPAA in 1966, he was immediately faced with a problem regarding language in the film version of Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Valenti negotiated a compromise: The word "screw" was removed, but other language, including the phrase "hump the hostess," remained. The film received Production Code approval despite having language that was clearly prohibited. The British-produced, but American financed film Blowup (1966) presented a different problem. After the film was denied Production Code approval, MGM released it anyway, the first instance of an MPAA member company distributing a film that did not have an approval certificate. The MPAA could do little about it.

Enforcement had become impossible, and the Production Code was abandoned.

References & Credits: Google, Wikipedia, Wikihow, WikiBooks, Pinterest, IMDB, Linked In, Indie Wire, Film Making Stuff, Hiive, Film Daily, New York Film Academy, The Balance, Careers Hub, The Numbers, Film Maker, TV Guide Magazine, Blurb, Media Match, Quora, Creative Skill Set, Chron, Investopedia, Variety, No Film School, WGA, BBC, Daily Variety, The Film Agency, Best Sample Resume, How Stuff Works, Studio Binder, Career Trend, Producer's Code of Credits, Truity, Production Hub, Producers Guild of America, Film Connection, Variety, Wolf Crow, Get In Media, Production Beast, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros, UCAS, Frankenbite, Realty 101, Careers Hub, Screen Play Scripts, Elements of Cinema, Script Doctor, ASCAP, Film Independent, Any Possibility, CTLsites, NYFA, Future Learn, VOM Productions, Mad Studios, Rewire, DP School, Film Reference, DGA, IATSE, ASC, MPAA, HFPA, MPSE, CDG, AFI, Box Office Mojo, Rotten Tomatoes, Indie Film Hustle, The Numbers, Netflix, Vimeo, Instagram, Pinterest, Metacritic, Hulu, Reddit, Locations Hub, NAB, CCA,

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Film Censorship / Photo Credit: Fotolia