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Motion Picture Production Code (view source)
Revision as of 22:45, April 6, 2007
, 22:45, April 6, 2007New page
The '''Motion Picture Production Code''', more commonly named after its most staunch proponent, [[William Hays]], was a comprehensive--and, for most of its life, binding--set of limits on the content of [[motion picture]]s in the [[United States of America]].
== Pre-Code ==
Since shortly after motion pictures first became popular in the United States, public and [[church]] officials expressed great concern about the moral tone of motion-picture content. Nor was this concern entirely misplaced. In sharp contrast to the traditional stage, motion pictures are acted out ''away from the immediate presence of their viewers''. This salient fact caused many motion-picture producers to act without the restraint that stage producers and directors had to observe, and therefore many motion-picture projects presented salacious spectacles of which even the [[Rome|Roman]] [[Emperor]] [[Nero]] would be proud.
In response, many State [[legislature]]s began passing laws regulating the kinds of motion pictures that could be shown within their jurisdictions. In 1915 the Mutual Film Corporation sued to prevent enforcement, by the Industrial Commission of Ohio, of such a law within Ohio. Eventually the [[Supreme Court]] of the [[United States]] held<ref name=MutvOhio>''[http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=236&invol=230 Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio], 236 U.S. 230 (1915), retrieved April 6, 2007, from FindLaw.com</ref> that motion pictures did not enjoy the protection against "abridgment of the freedom of speech" mentioned in the First Amendment to the [[United States Constitution]]
The 1920's saw the drug-related deaths--and, in two memorable cases, the murders--of a number of film actors and directors. This, in addition to the content of many projects, caused the public to regard [[Hollywood]] with a jaundiced eye.<ref name=Wikipedia>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_Code Production Code] by [[Wikipedia]]</ref>
Hollywood responded by forming the Motion Picture Production and Distribution Association and pledging to write a code governing film content. The producers did this to avoid having the content of their projects come under federal law. The first president of the MPPDA was [[William Hays]].
Hays tried for eight years to enforce a rough moral guideline on film content, but the producers paid him little heed. But with the invention of talking pictures in 1927, the situation became more urgent, and the producers finally agreed to write a formal code. This the MPDAA did in 1930. They did not ''enforce'' this code until the middle of 1934, when [[Joseph I. Breen]] was named to head the new Production Code Administration. With this appointment, and a new rule requiring all films to obtain a rating from the PCA, enforcement was definite and consistent.<ref name=Brandeis>Doherty, Thomas, [http://my.brandeis.edu/news/item?news_item_id=105052&show_release_date=1/ The Code Before 'Da Vinci'], ''The Washington Post'', Saturday, May 20, 2006, page A23; quoted in ''Brandeis News'' and retrieved from its on-line archive on April 6, 2007</ref>
== Workings of the Code ==
The PCA's system was simple: a film either passed, or it didn't, and if it failed to gain PCA approval, then it would not be released. Perhaps because the Code was so comprehensive, and the PCA's enforcement of it so consistent, State and local censorship boards gradually stood down. The federal Customs department banned any foreign films that would not be up to this Code, but Congress never debated any measure for federal government censorship of motion pictures.
== Provisions of the Code ==
The full text of the Code can be viewed here,<ref name=Code1>[http://www.artsreformation.com/a001/hays-code.html Motion Picture Production Code] at ArtsReformation.com</ref> here,<ref name=Code2>[http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs/ProductionCode.htm Motion Picture Production Code] at the University of North Dakota</ref> and here.<ref name=Code3>[http://home.earthlink.net/~prodcode/ Motion Picture Production Code] hosted by David P. Hayes</ref> The best summary of the Code was contained in its three General Principles:
# No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or [[sin]].
# Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.
# [[Law]], natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.
The particular applications were mostly in accord with these principles. The following particulars are noteworthy:
* [[Murder]]s were never to be shown in detail. The operative concerns were twofold: that no person murder another by imitating a murder he saw done on film, and that viewers not be subject to a sick-making spectacle.
* Similarly, methods of crime were never to be shown in enough detail as to inspire imitation or, worse yet, to give instruction in crime.
* Crime must never "pay." This led, in a number of instances involving adaptations of plots from stage to film, to the requirement that the film end in a manner substantially different from the play. For example, in ''The Bad Seed'' (1956), the child murderess was shown making a desperate search to retrieve the metal-plated shoes she had used to kill her victim, only to die of a [[lightning]] strike.<ref name=BadSeed>[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048977/ The Bad Seed (1956)] at the Internet Movie Database</ref> That scene was not in the original stage script. (And even then, the lightning strike had to be shot at a wide angle.)
* Intimate interactions not necessary to the plot were not to be shown on camera--and no actor or actress was to appear on camera without a minimum amount of clothing.
* Profane or obscene language was never to be spoken.
* Vulgar, disgusting subjects had to be handled in a manner not likely to nauseate the audience.
* Intoxicating liquor was not to be drunk unless such drinking was necessary to the plot. This was especially important when [[Prohibition]] was still in force, but was enforced less well afterward.
* Producers were not to hold any religion up to ridicule, or to cast disrespect on "the just rights, history, and feelings of any nation."
== Decline of the Code ==
The introduction of [[television]] created a new problem for motion-picture exhibitors, in that viewers could now stay at home to watch the sort of spectacle that, heretofore, they had to go out to a public venue to see. So producers experimented with a variety of techniques to distinguish themselves from television, by doing things that television could not do. For example, they changed the aspect ratio of their films from the traditional 4:3 to 16:9, 2:1, or even 2.25:1. But they also agitated for the right to include more salacious content in their films.
In 1954, Joseph Breen retired as head of the PCA. Then an antitrust ruling severely weakened the PCA's power of enforcement.<ref name=PBS>[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/theater/hollywood.html Howard Hawks' ''Scarface'' and the Hollywood Production Code] from the ''Culture Shock'' series of retrospectives by the Public Broadcasting Service (on-line program note retrieved on April 6, 2007)</ref> Opinions differ as to the particular motion-picture production or productions that might have further weakened the code to make it unenforceable. Perhaps the strongest candidate is [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s ''Psycho'' (1960)<ref name=Psycho>[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054215/ Psycho (1960)] at the Internet Movie Database</ref>, which had multiple elements that the Code forbade: adultery, bank embezzlement, a flight from the law, voyeurism, and ultimately two murders, the first of which was the most gruesome murder staged to date on film.
In 1968, the now-renamed Motion Picture Producers of America abandoned the Code completely in favor of their present ratings system.
== References ==
<references/>
[[Category:Culture]]
== Pre-Code ==
Since shortly after motion pictures first became popular in the United States, public and [[church]] officials expressed great concern about the moral tone of motion-picture content. Nor was this concern entirely misplaced. In sharp contrast to the traditional stage, motion pictures are acted out ''away from the immediate presence of their viewers''. This salient fact caused many motion-picture producers to act without the restraint that stage producers and directors had to observe, and therefore many motion-picture projects presented salacious spectacles of which even the [[Rome|Roman]] [[Emperor]] [[Nero]] would be proud.
In response, many State [[legislature]]s began passing laws regulating the kinds of motion pictures that could be shown within their jurisdictions. In 1915 the Mutual Film Corporation sued to prevent enforcement, by the Industrial Commission of Ohio, of such a law within Ohio. Eventually the [[Supreme Court]] of the [[United States]] held<ref name=MutvOhio>''[http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=236&invol=230 Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio], 236 U.S. 230 (1915), retrieved April 6, 2007, from FindLaw.com</ref> that motion pictures did not enjoy the protection against "abridgment of the freedom of speech" mentioned in the First Amendment to the [[United States Constitution]]
The 1920's saw the drug-related deaths--and, in two memorable cases, the murders--of a number of film actors and directors. This, in addition to the content of many projects, caused the public to regard [[Hollywood]] with a jaundiced eye.<ref name=Wikipedia>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_Code Production Code] by [[Wikipedia]]</ref>
Hollywood responded by forming the Motion Picture Production and Distribution Association and pledging to write a code governing film content. The producers did this to avoid having the content of their projects come under federal law. The first president of the MPPDA was [[William Hays]].
Hays tried for eight years to enforce a rough moral guideline on film content, but the producers paid him little heed. But with the invention of talking pictures in 1927, the situation became more urgent, and the producers finally agreed to write a formal code. This the MPDAA did in 1930. They did not ''enforce'' this code until the middle of 1934, when [[Joseph I. Breen]] was named to head the new Production Code Administration. With this appointment, and a new rule requiring all films to obtain a rating from the PCA, enforcement was definite and consistent.<ref name=Brandeis>Doherty, Thomas, [http://my.brandeis.edu/news/item?news_item_id=105052&show_release_date=1/ The Code Before 'Da Vinci'], ''The Washington Post'', Saturday, May 20, 2006, page A23; quoted in ''Brandeis News'' and retrieved from its on-line archive on April 6, 2007</ref>
== Workings of the Code ==
The PCA's system was simple: a film either passed, or it didn't, and if it failed to gain PCA approval, then it would not be released. Perhaps because the Code was so comprehensive, and the PCA's enforcement of it so consistent, State and local censorship boards gradually stood down. The federal Customs department banned any foreign films that would not be up to this Code, but Congress never debated any measure for federal government censorship of motion pictures.
== Provisions of the Code ==
The full text of the Code can be viewed here,<ref name=Code1>[http://www.artsreformation.com/a001/hays-code.html Motion Picture Production Code] at ArtsReformation.com</ref> here,<ref name=Code2>[http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs/ProductionCode.htm Motion Picture Production Code] at the University of North Dakota</ref> and here.<ref name=Code3>[http://home.earthlink.net/~prodcode/ Motion Picture Production Code] hosted by David P. Hayes</ref> The best summary of the Code was contained in its three General Principles:
# No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or [[sin]].
# Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.
# [[Law]], natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.
The particular applications were mostly in accord with these principles. The following particulars are noteworthy:
* [[Murder]]s were never to be shown in detail. The operative concerns were twofold: that no person murder another by imitating a murder he saw done on film, and that viewers not be subject to a sick-making spectacle.
* Similarly, methods of crime were never to be shown in enough detail as to inspire imitation or, worse yet, to give instruction in crime.
* Crime must never "pay." This led, in a number of instances involving adaptations of plots from stage to film, to the requirement that the film end in a manner substantially different from the play. For example, in ''The Bad Seed'' (1956), the child murderess was shown making a desperate search to retrieve the metal-plated shoes she had used to kill her victim, only to die of a [[lightning]] strike.<ref name=BadSeed>[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048977/ The Bad Seed (1956)] at the Internet Movie Database</ref> That scene was not in the original stage script. (And even then, the lightning strike had to be shot at a wide angle.)
* Intimate interactions not necessary to the plot were not to be shown on camera--and no actor or actress was to appear on camera without a minimum amount of clothing.
* Profane or obscene language was never to be spoken.
* Vulgar, disgusting subjects had to be handled in a manner not likely to nauseate the audience.
* Intoxicating liquor was not to be drunk unless such drinking was necessary to the plot. This was especially important when [[Prohibition]] was still in force, but was enforced less well afterward.
* Producers were not to hold any religion up to ridicule, or to cast disrespect on "the just rights, history, and feelings of any nation."
== Decline of the Code ==
The introduction of [[television]] created a new problem for motion-picture exhibitors, in that viewers could now stay at home to watch the sort of spectacle that, heretofore, they had to go out to a public venue to see. So producers experimented with a variety of techniques to distinguish themselves from television, by doing things that television could not do. For example, they changed the aspect ratio of their films from the traditional 4:3 to 16:9, 2:1, or even 2.25:1. But they also agitated for the right to include more salacious content in their films.
In 1954, Joseph Breen retired as head of the PCA. Then an antitrust ruling severely weakened the PCA's power of enforcement.<ref name=PBS>[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/theater/hollywood.html Howard Hawks' ''Scarface'' and the Hollywood Production Code] from the ''Culture Shock'' series of retrospectives by the Public Broadcasting Service (on-line program note retrieved on April 6, 2007)</ref> Opinions differ as to the particular motion-picture production or productions that might have further weakened the code to make it unenforceable. Perhaps the strongest candidate is [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s ''Psycho'' (1960)<ref name=Psycho>[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054215/ Psycho (1960)] at the Internet Movie Database</ref>, which had multiple elements that the Code forbade: adultery, bank embezzlement, a flight from the law, voyeurism, and ultimately two murders, the first of which was the most gruesome murder staged to date on film.
In 1968, the now-renamed Motion Picture Producers of America abandoned the Code completely in favor of their present ratings system.
== References ==
<references/>
[[Category:Culture]]