Emergence of the Hollywood Production Code and the PCA

¶ … emergence of the Hollywood Production Code and the PCA

Motion pictures production codes emerged in the 1930's and referred to as the Hays codes after Will hays who was the censor chief at Hollywood during this time. The production codes governed the production of motion pictures in the United States by major studios at the time. The motion pictures production code can be referred to as a set of moral censorship rules that governed the motion picture industry. The codes were adapted by the Motion Pictures Association of America in 1930, commenced enforcing the code in 1934 and deserted them in 1968. The association then adapted Motion Pictures Association of Americas film rating systems which are effective to date. The work of the association was to determine what was morally acceptable in the content produced by American production studios. The code of ethics protected the public audience from images that would erode the morals of the society (Doherty 67).

Emergence of the production codes

The need to improve Hollywood's image come after there was a series of scandals and risque films affected some famous actors. The studios sort the help of Will Hays to improve the image of Hollywood in 1922. In the 1920's, allegations of corruption and questionable morals affected the movie industry. This period saw political pressure increase to govern the industry. 1n 1921, almost a hundred bills has been introduced with regards to censorship. Hay came up with some recommendations to the studios referred to as The Formula. The recommendations required the studios to uphold The Formula and describe the plot of future films to Hays' office for approval. Performances with sexual content, cursive language, sexual dialogue and mature subject matter however become rampant during this period. This was due to the different censorship law adapted by various states in America. This led to the need for adapting Motion pictures production codes which were adapted in the early 1930's (Doherty 69).

Code content creation

Martin Quigley and Daniel Lord formulated a code of standards in 1929 and gave it to studios to evaluate. The code of standards had the support of William Hays. Martin and Lord held meetings with some studios and revisions were made to the code of standards. In February 1930, the studios agreed to abide to the code of standards stipulated. This move ensured that the government could not directly affect the film industry. Supervision and advice to the film producers on areas that required editing was done by the studio relations committee which was headed by Jason Joy at the time.

The codes were divided into general principles and particular applications. The general principles dealt with morals while the particular principles dealt with the specific content that could not be shown in the films. Some content such as homosexuality and some curse words were considered common sense and not included in the code of conduct. Mixing of races was also not allowed in the code of standards. The aim of the code of standards was to ensure that only moral content was displayed and traditional values upheld by the industry. Vices were portrayed in a way that they could not arouse passion in the audience and ensured that the vices could not be accepted in the society.

The codes ensured that the audience was aware that all wrong behaviour has consequences and has to be punished. The films had to portray respect to authority, were clergy could not be villains or comical characters in the film. The code of ethics was written with a catholic theme as it was written by catholic clergy men. The main theme in the code of ethics was that evil was not acceptable and good was acceptable. The codes contained postscript called advertising code which influenced advertising copy and imagery.

Enforcing the codes

The codes were published in 1930 by a paper that predicted that the role of the film censorship board was being assimilated by the codes. Jason joy and his successor failed in their implementation of the code due to various factors. Some films reviewed by the implementation team were considered indecent by some states. The implementation team was under staffed and lacked adequate resources to review the films produced. The tam had to review over 500 films annually on a stringent budget. This meant that the quality of the work done by the implementation team would be low. The implementation team lacked the power to order studios to edit film content. The implementation team conducted talks with the studio heads and pleaded with them to edit the content of the films. The content published eventually was the responsibility of the studio producing the film (Phillips and Kendall 13).

The social attitude at the time also led to ignoring the code of standards by film studios. The liberal nature of the society rebelled against the published code of conduct. The society accused the codes as being hypocritical in a practical world. Some if the issues debated include the depiction of the church as good people in the society. The codes also come in an economically influenced time. The start of the Great Depression took place around this time. Stiff economic times resulted in low ticket sales thus further decline in the industry. High ticket sales were due to violent films thus the studios found no sense in producing violent free films that would yield low sales.

In 1934, amendments were made to the code that required film producers to acquire a certificate of approval for all films produced after July 1934. The period between 1934 and 1954 was referred to as the Breen Era. This was after Joseph Breen who headed the Production code Administration. Breen has the power to edit scripts which did not impress writers. This period was marked by a dramatic change in the film industry due to strict observation of the codes. The Production code Administration was also responsible for political censorship of many films during the World War II period. Some studios outside the mainstream system did not follow the code accurately which led to revision of the codes in 1951. The revisions made the rule more stringent with an increase in the list of prohibited words increasing (Phillips 14).