Pre-Code Hollywood? What´s that? The term appeared while reading about
the movies being based on the character, Tom
Sawyer, created by
Mark Twain. We also check on miscegenation,
sexual innuendo, risqué and beacon
Pre-Code Hollywood refers to the brief era in the American film industry
between the introduction of sound pictures in 1929 and the enforcement of the
Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines in 1934, usually labeled, although
inaccurately, as the "Hays Code". Although the Code was adopted in
1930, understanding was poor and it did not become rigorously enforced until
1934, with the establishment of the PCA. Before that date, movie content was
restricted more by local laws and popular opinion than strict adherence to the
Hays Code, which was often ignored by Hollywood filmmakers.
As a result,
films in the late 1920s and early 1930s included sexual innuendo, miscegenation, profanity, illegal drug use, promiscuity,
prostitution, infidelity, abortion, intense violence, and homosexuality. Many
of Hollywood's biggest stars such as Clark
Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell and Edward G.
Robinson got their start in the era.
Beginning in
late 1933 American Roman Catholics launched a campaign
against what they deemed the immorality of American cinema. This, plus a
potential government takeover of film censorship and social research seeming to
indicate that movies which were seen to be immoral could promote bad behavior,
was enough pressure to force the studios to capitulate to greater supervision.
In 1922, after
some risqué films and a series of
off-screen scandals involving Hollywood stars, the studios enlisted beacon of rectitude and Presbyterian
elder William H. "Will" Hays to rehabilitate Hollywood's image. Hays,
later nicknamed the motion picture "Czar", was paid the then-extravagant
sum of $100,000 a year (equivalent to more than $1.4 million in 2014 dollars).
Hays introduced
a set of recommendations in 1924, which the studios were advised to notice, and
asked filmmakers to describe to his office the plots of pictures they were
planning.
The Code sought
not only to determine what could be portrayed on screen, but also to promote
traditional values. Sexual relations outside of marriage could not be portrayed
as attractive and beautiful, presented in a way that might arouse passion, nor
be made to seem right and permissible. All criminal action had to be punished,
and neither the crime nor the criminal could elicit sympathy from the audience.
Authority figures had to be treated respectfully, and the clergy could not be
portrayed as comic characters or villains. Under some circumstances,
politicians, police officers and judges could be villains, as long as it was
clear that they were the exception to the rule.
The entire
document contained Catholic
undertones and stated that art must be handled carefully because it could be
"morally evil in its effects" and because its "deep moral
significance" was unquestionable. The Catholic
influence on the Code was initially kept secret.
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Barbara Stanwyck |
Vocabulario
Innuendo: The
term sexual innuendo has acquired a
specific meaning, namely that of a "risque" double entendre by
playing on a possibly sexual interpretation of an otherwise innocent uttering.
For example: "We need to go deeper" can be seen as both a request for
further inquiry on any given issue or a request to go deeper into an orifice.
Risqué: verging
on indecency.
Beacon: a source
of guidance.
En preparación
En preparación
Robo de cadáveres (El propósito de los robos de cadáveres,
especialmente en el siglo 19, fue vender los cuerpos para disección o clases de
anatomía en los centros médicos. En vocabulario body snatching o resurrectionists.
Estos temas aparecen después de leer Las
aventuras de Tom Sawyer, de Mark Twain.)
Recursos
"Gay" in Pre-Code Hollywood, “Sex perversion” was forbidden during our grandfathers’
era.
It was the same in
Argentina during the military dictatorship; some people had the job of dictating
what movies we could see. Killing people was OK but seeing a woman´s breasts
was devastating.