WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THE HAYS CODE? (In the Entertainment industry.)

The Hay’s Code / Photo Credit: MPPA - SlidePlayer

WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THE HAYS CODE? (In the Entertainment industry.)  

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What was the purpose of the hays code?  

The Hays Code was in place until 1965. What was the Purpose of the Hays Code? The Purpose of the 1930 Hays Code was to establish a voluntary self-censoring system for the production of movies and to improve the image of Hollywood thus avoiding the creation of a national censorship board by the Federal Government.

Under Hays' leadership, the MPPDA, later known as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), adopted the Production Code in 1930, and began rigidly enforcing it in mid-1934.

Definition and Summary of the Hays Code for kids

Summary and Definition: The Hays Code was a set of rules that enforced censorship on the American cinema in response to the increase of public complaints about the lewd content of movies and the scandalous behavior of Hollywood movie stars. The increasingly liberal content of Hollywood films, and the scandals surrounding famous movie stars, led to a media frenzy. The public outcry was so great that the federal government were seriously considering the establishment of a national censorship board. To prevent this happening Hollywood moguls and the movie studios decided to voluntarily censor films themselves.

Hays Code: The Code to Govern the Making of Talking and Silent Motion Pictures

A list of production directives were established by a Hollywood board led by Will Hays, a former US Postmaster General, and the President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA). In 1930 Will Hays produced a list of rules and guidelines called "The Don'ts and Be Careful’s" which the Hays Code was based on. Its official name was the Code to Govern the Making of Talking, Synchronized and Silent Motion Pictures. The Hays Code was set aside in 1965 when the MPPDA adopted the age-based rating system that is in force today.

The Motion Picture Production Code was the set of industry moral guidelines that was applied to most United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1930 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Will H. Hays, who was the president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) from 1922 to 1945. Under Hays' leadership, the MPPDA, later known as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), adopted the Production Code in 1930, and began rigidly enforcing it in mid-1934. The Production Code spelled out what was acceptable and what was unacceptable content for motion pictures produced for a public audience in the United States.

From 1934 to 1954, the code was closely identified with Joseph Breen, the administrator appointed by Hays to enforce the code in Hollywood. The film industry followed the guidelines set by the code well into the late 1950s, but during this time, the code began to weaken due to the combined impact of television, influence from foreign films, controversial directors (such as Otto Preminger) pushing boundaries, and intervention from the courts, including the Supreme Court. In 1968, after several years of minimal enforcement, the Production Code was replaced by the MPAA film rating system.

Background

In 1922, after several risqué films and a series of off-screen scandals involving Hollywood stars, the studios enlisted Presbyterian elder Will H. Hays to rehabilitate Hollywood's image. Hollywood in the 1920s was badgered by a number of widespread scandals, such as the murder of William Desmond Taylor and alleged rape of Virginia Rappe by popular movie star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, which brought widespread condemnation from religious, civic, and political organizations. Many felt the movie industry had always been morally questionable. Political pressure was increasing, with legislators in 37 states introducing almost one hundred movie censorship bills in 1921. Faced with the prospect of having to comply with hundreds, and potentially thousands, of inconsistent and easily changed decency laws in order to show their movies, the studios chose self-regulation as the preferable option. Hays was paid the then-lavish sum of $100,000 a year (equal to $1,496,819 today). Hays, Postmaster General under Warren G. Harding and former head of the Republican National Committee, served for 25 years as president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), where he "defended the industry from attacks, recited soothing nostrums, and negotiated treaties to cease hostilities".

The move mimicked the decision Major League Baseball had made in hiring judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as League Commissioner the previous year to quell questions about the integrity of baseball in the wake of the 1919 World Series gambling scandal; The New York Times even called Hays the "screen Landis". In 1924, Hays introduced a set of recommendations dubbed "The Formula", which the studios were advised to heed, and asked filmmakers to describe to his office the plots of pictures they were planning on making. The Supreme Court had already decided unanimously in 1915 in Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio that free speech did not extend to motion pictures, and while there had been token attempts to clean up the movies before—such as when the studios formed the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry (NAMPI) in 1916—little had come of the efforts.

New York became the first state to take advantage of the Supreme Court's decision by instituting a censorship board in 1921. Virginia followed suit the following year, with eight individual states having a board by the advent of sound film, but many of these were ineffectual. By the 1920s, the New York stage—a frequent source of subsequent screen material—had topless shows, performances filled with curse words, mature subject matters, and sexually suggestive dialogue. Early in the sound system conversion process, it became apparent that what might be acceptable in New York would not be so in Kansas. Moviemakers were looking at the possibility that many states and cities would adopt their own codes of censorship, requiring a multiplicity of versions of movies made for national distribution. Self-censorship seemed a preferable outcome.

In 1927, Hays suggested to studio executives that they form a committee to discuss film censorship. Irving G. Thalberg of Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Sol Wurtzel of Fox, and E. H. Allen of Paramount responded by collaborating on a list they called the "Don'ts and Be Careful’s", which was based on items that were challenged by local censor boards. This list consisted of eleven subjects best avoided and twenty-six to be handled very carefully. The list was approved by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Hays created the Studio Relations Committee (SRC) to oversee its implementation; however, there was still no way to enforce tenets. The controversy surrounding film standards came to a head in 1929.

Pre-code: "Don'ts" and "Be Careful’s", as proposed in 1927

The Code enumerated a number of key points known as the "Don'ts" and "Be Careful’s

Resolved, that those things which are included in the following list shall not appear in pictures produced by the members of this Association, irrespective of the manner in which they are treated: 

• Pointed profanity – by either title or lip – this includes the words "God", "Lord", "Jesus", "Christ" (unless they be used reverently in connection with proper religious ceremonies), "hell", "damn", "Gawd", and every other profane and vulgar expression however it may be spelled…
• Any licentious or suggestive nudity – in fact or in silhouette; and any lecherous or licentious notice thereof by other characters in the picture…
• The illegal traffic in drugs…
• Any inference of sex perversion…
• White slavery…
• Miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and black races)…
• Sex hygiene and venereal diseases…
• Scenes of actual childbirth – in fact or in silhouette…
• Children's sex organs…
• Ridicule of the clergy…
• Willful offense to any nation, race or creed…

And be it further resolved, that special care be exercised in the manner in which the following subjects are treated, to the end that vulgarity and suggestiveness may be eliminated and that good taste may be emphasized: 

• The use of the flag…
• International relations (avoiding picturizing in an unfavorable light another country's religion, history, institutions, prominent people, and citizenry) …
• Arson…
• The use of firearms…
• Theft, robbery, safe-cracking, and dynamiting of trains, mines, buildings, etc. (having in mind the effect which a too-detailed description of these may have upon the moron) …
• Brutality and possible gruesomeness…
• Technique of committing murder by whatever method…
• Methods of smuggling…
• Third-degree methods…
• Actual hangings or electrocutions as legal punishment for crime…
• Sympathy for criminals…
• Attitude toward public characters and institutions…
• Sedition…
• Apparent cruelty to children and animals…
• Branding of people or animals…
• The sale of women, or of a woman selling her virtue…
• Rape or attempted rape…
• First-night scenes…
• Man and woman in bed together…
• Deliberate seduction of girls…
• The institution of marriage…
• Surgical operations…
• The use of drugs…
• Titles or scenes having to do with law enforcement or law-enforcing officers…
• Excessive or lustful kissing, particularly when one character or the other is a "heavy"… 

Decline of the Production Code

Hollywood continued to work within the confines of the Production Code throughout the 1950s, but during this time, the movie industry was faced with very serious competitive threats. The first threat came from a new technology, television, which did not require Americans to leave their house to watch moving pictures. Hollywood needed to offer the public something it could not get on television, which itself was under an even more restrictive censorship code. In addition to the threat of television, there was also increasing competition from foreign films, such as Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948), the Swedish film One Summer of Happiness (1951), and Ingmar Bergman's Summer with Monika (1953). Vertical integration in the movie industry had been found to violate anti-trust laws, and studios had been forced to give up ownership of theaters by the Supreme Court in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (1948). The studios had no way to keep foreign films out, and foreign films were not bound by the Production Code. Some British films — Victim (1961), A Taste of Honey (1961), and The Leather Boys (1963) — challenged traditional gender roles, and openly confronted the prejudices against homosexuals, all in clear violation of the Hollywood Production Code. In keeping with the changes in society, sexual content that would have previously been banned by the Code was being retained.

In 1952, in the case of Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overruled its 1915 decision (Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio) 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 reduced the threat of government regulation, which had formerly been cited as justification for the Production Code, and the PCA's powers over the Hollywood industry were greatly reduced. By the 1950s, American culture also began to change. A boycott by the National Legion of Decency no longer guaranteed a film's commercial failure, and several aspects of the code had slowly lost their taboo. In 1956, areas of the code were re-written to accept subjects such as miscegenation, adultery, and prostitution. For example, the re-make of a pre-Code film dealing with prostitution, Anna Christie, was cancelled by MGM twice, in 1940 and in 1946, as the character of Anna was not allowed to be portrayed as a prostitute. By 1962, such subject matter was acceptable, and the original film was given a seal of approval.

By the late 1950s, increasingly explicit films began to appear, such as Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Suddenly Last Summer (1959), Psycho (1960), and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1961). The MPAA reluctantly granted the seal of approval for these films, although not until certain cuts were made. Due to its themes, Billy Wilder's Some like It Hot (1959) was not granted a certificate of approval, but it still became a box office smash, and, as a result, it further weakened the authority of the Code.

At the forefront of contesting 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 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 murder and rape. Like Some like It Hot, Preminger's films were direct assaults on the authority of the Production Code, and their success hastened its abandonment. In the early 1960s, films began to deal with adult subjects and sexual matters that had not been seen in Hollywood films since the early 1930s. The MPAA reluctantly granted the seal of approval for these films, although again not until certain cuts were made.

In 1964, the Holocaust film 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, as well as due to a sex scene between Oliver and Jaime Sánchez 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, with the New York censors licensing the film without the cuts demanded by Code administrators. The producers 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 requested reductions of nudity were minimal; the outcome was viewed in the media as a victory for the film's producers.

The Pawnbroker was the first film featuring bare breasts to receive Production Code approval. The exception to the code was granted as a "special and unique case" and was described by The New York Times at the time as "an unprecedented move that will not, however, set a precedent". In Pictures at a Revolution, a 2008 study of films during that era, Mark Harris wrote that the MPAA approval was "the first of a series of injuries to the Production Code that would prove fatal within three years".

In 1966, Warner Bros. released who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The first film to feature the "Suggested for Mature Audiences" (SMA) label. When Jack Valenti became President of the MPAA in 1966, he was faced with censoring the film's explicit language. Valenti negotiated a compromise: the word "screw" was removed, but other language remained, including the phrase "hump the hostess". The film received Production Code approval despite the previously prohibited language.

That same year, the British-produced, American-financed film Blowup 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. That same year, the original and lengthy code was replaced by a list of eleven points. The points outlined that the boundaries of the new code would be current community standards and good taste. Any film containing content deemed suitable for older audiences would feature the label SMA in its advertising. With the creation of this new label, the MPAA unofficially began classifying films.

Production Code abandoned

By the late 1960s, enforcement had become impossible and the Production Code was abandoned entirely. The MPAA began working on a rating system, under which film restrictions would lessen. The MPAA film rating system went into effect on November 1, 1968, with four ratings: G for general audiences, M for mature content, R for restricted (under 17 not admitted without an adult), and X for sexually explicit content. By the end of 1968, Geoffrey Shurlock stepped down from his post.

In 1969, the Swedish film I Am Curious (Yellow), directed by Vilgot Sjöman, was initially banned in the U.S. for its frank depiction of sexuality; however, this was overturned by the Supreme Court. In 1970, because of confusion over the meaning of "mature audiences", the M rating was changed to GP, and then in 1972 to the current PG, for "parental guidance suggested". In 1984, in response to public complaints regarding the severity of horror elements in PG-rated titles such as Gremlins and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the PG-13 rating was created as a middle tier between PG and R. In 1990, the X rating was replaced by NC-17 (under 17 not admitted), partly because of the stigma associated with the X rating, and partly because the X rating was not trademarked by the MPAA; pornographic bookstores and theaters were using their own X, XX, and XXX symbols to market products.

Despite the name change from X to NC-17, this highest rating is very rarely issued due to its ongoing stigma. As the American Humane Association's Hollywood office depended on the Hays Office for the right to monitor sets, the closure of the Hays Office in 1966 corresponded with an increase in animal cruelty on movie sets. According to a writer for Turner Classic Movies, the association's access did not return to Hays-era standards until 1980.

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The Hay’s Code / Photo Credit: MPPA - SlidePlayer