 Crossfire 1947 (Edward Dmytryk) The novel was based on a homophobic murder, but because of the code they switched it to another hot issues: Anti-Semitism. |
One document that had tremendous influence on the way Hollywood movies were constructed was the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930, named the “Hays Code.” The Code states that, “Movies are “entertainment” but of a very peculiar kind which produces strange effects never encountered before as part of any entertainment, effects which threaten to compromise the morality of movie viewers so powerfully that moviemakers must censor themselves” (Tratner). The Code begins on just how movies reach audiences. He says that most arts appeal to the mature, but this art appeals at once to every class whether it be mature, immature, developed, law-abiding, or criminal. The combined fundamental appeals of watching a picture as well as listening to a story are bound to reach every class of society, and because of the mobility of a film and ease of distribution the art “reaches places unpenetrated by other forms of art” (Tratner). All of this combined makes is very difficult to produces films that are intended for only certain audiences. The theaters are for the masses.
The Hays Code describes screening in terms of broad distribution of prints and the consequential largeness of the audiences. This is due to the mobility that movies have as an art form, which results in very diverse audiences. This Code disagrees with almost everything the spectator theory says, for instance; the spectator theory says that the “Hollywood movies are constructed by projecting an audience of persons completely identical to each other” or in other words it says that movies are set up so that each person creates a response nonrepresentational from their position in society into an identically inspiring position. Hays code simply says that it takes more the deal with the variations of audiences so we might as well just structure each movie to imply an “identical, white, middle-class male spectator.”
The Code worries that movies can create this apparent reality of life through the film images, which bring stories closer to the audience then plays ever could. Hays Code suggests that realism functions to produce crowd responses. It states that to arouse the emotional side is to draw people away from their rational or moral sides, and that those elements are predominantly effective at lowering the moral resistance of audiences.
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Another part of the Hays Code deals with politics. The concern about the crowds a concern about the politics of mass movement, and an effort to protect the United States against political systems based on representing masses rather than representing individuals, mainly Communism and Fascism. Communist and Fascist leaders agreed with the Hays Code, that large audiences can make people suggestible, yet it also presents an effect that encourage morality, not a danger. The ministries of propaganda in Fascist and Communist countries actively promoted films of mass gatherings. Hays Code says that movie watching is not entirely experienced as a single moment in “darkness”, but instead it is experiencing a sense of being part of a large group of people watching the same images all over the country. Communist and Fascist regimes promote the alteration of morality caused by emotionally charged crowds.
Hays Code does not propose leaving people to come up with their own interpretation nor does it propose ways to maintain people’s ability to resist the suggestions made by movies. Instead of trying to reduce all these crowd responses, the Hays Code focuses on how to use that response. The Code uses the power of social influence to provide a common morality for everyone, a morality that favors the individual over the masses.
Note the similarity of the conceptions which are invoked by the Hays Code, by Marx and by Hitler as they all talk about the crowd experience: "enthusiasm," "ecstasy," "intoxication" and intensely "aroused . . . emotions." What Hitler praises—the magic influence of mass suggestion—is identical to what the Hays Code presents as a dangerous effect of movies, the "lower . . . moral mass resistance to suggestion.
This example shows the role in which Hays Code played in politics and not just movie making. Part of what got writers of the Code worried was the connection between what movies seemed to do to people and what mass riots seemed to do. This fear was in part because of the fear of communism in the United States and how these movies would create powerful collective emotions.
The Hays Code makes this shift from speaking of dangers of collective emotions to sexuality and criminality. This is in no way a way of ignoring the political issues rather; they saw it as an important method to developed in the twentieth century. Some argued that those powerful emotions were all sexual in nature so therefore, these scenes can be stimulates as long as the emotion that are produces are redirected into a sexual emotion.
It is apparent while reading this article that Hays Code had a great effect on both politics and movies. And today the Hays Code has been replaced with our rating system, yet censorship is in our films today.
