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Post by Feologild Oakes on Oct 30, 2021 20:48:47 GMT
Would you like to see the return of the Hayes Code?
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Post by Archelaus on Oct 30, 2021 22:37:30 GMT
In hindsight, the Hayes (or Motion Picture Production) Code had its pluses and minuses, but it was born from an assumption that visual entertainment would influence human behavior. With or without movies, some humans are going to commit criminal acts, engage in promiscuity and have adulterous affairs, and etc. Movies just became a new form of telling a novel, and the author can choose to punish or reward the characters. Sure, it's morally responsible to discourage unlawful behaviors, but movies can educate audiences on certain societal topics and the Hayes Code sucked the life out of it by having the topic removed altogether, implying it, or having it be punished at the end. A film like The Children's Hour was mostly heavily affected by the Code, which ended with a lesbian character dying as punishment of her sin . On the other hand, it did force some filmmakers to be creative on how to work around the regulations of the Code. Anyway, as a lover of movies, I do like to see villains and criminality punished and depending on the target audience, I don't need to hear too much profanity. I personally don't want to see the Hayes or Motion Picture Production Code revived. |
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Post by kolchak92 on Oct 30, 2021 23:06:11 GMT
It was a really bad thing. I believe the great movies that were made at that time succeeded in spite of the code, not because of it.
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Post by movielover on Oct 30, 2021 23:13:47 GMT
Bad. A lot of good movies got ruined by stupid endings due to the Hayes Code.
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Post by novastar6 on Oct 30, 2021 23:14:53 GMT
Good and bad, it's always fun to find a pre-code movie and you KNOW it's one, not a fan of censorship but I do like how people were forced to be creative to work stuff around it.
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Post by Lux on Oct 30, 2021 23:22:17 GMT
In hindsight, the Hayes (or Motion Picture Production) Code had its pluses and minuses, but it was born from an assumption that visual entertainment would influence human behavior. With or without movies, some humans are going to commit criminal acts, engage in promiscuity and have adulterous affairs, and etc. Movies just became a new form of telling a novel, and the author can choose to punish or reward the characters. Sure, it's morally responsible to discourage unlawful behaviors, but movies can educate audiences on certain societal topics and the Hayes Code sucked the life out of it by having the topic removed altogether, implying it, or having it be punished at the end. A film like The Children's Hour was mostly heavily affected by the Code, which ended with a lesbian character dying as punishment of her sin . On the other hand, it did force some filmmakers to be creative on how to work around the regulations of the Code. Anyway, as a lover of movies, I do like to see villains and criminality punished and depending on the target audience, I don't need to hear too much profanity. I personally don't want to see the Hayes or Motion Picture Production Code revived. Hayes is? |
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Oct 31, 2021 0:26:11 GMT
A little of both. Most of its provisions were childish and harmed movies. But I think it gave movies, especially with their expanded popularity in the Talkie Era, a "breathing space". Sound on film meant that movies could play in the smallest towns because you didn't have to pay an orchestra. Movies in the end of the Silent Era were getting a little more lewd, for lack of a better term. If the studios had started to put out films that had oodles of nudity, subversive messages, much profanity, there might have been a reaction that could have severely damaged the motion picture industry, which could have been devastating in the Depression.
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Post by Popeye Doyle on Oct 31, 2021 0:31:51 GMT
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a fuck.”
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Post by phantomparticle on Oct 31, 2021 0:44:19 GMT
Overall, it was a bad thing.
The only saving grace is that it forced Hollywood to be creative in ways to circumvent the sharp scissors crowd.
Nevertheless, it was censorship, to which I've always been opposed.
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Post by gameboy on Oct 31, 2021 0:47:33 GMT
So far there are 9 "no" votes and 5 dumbasses voted they don't care. Really, you don't care if a bureau of corporate executives enact strict censorship codes in movies?
Can one of these 5 imbeciles type out a reason why? If you can't spell the words just sound them out and we'll try to decipher what you're trying to say.
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Post by petrolino on Oct 31, 2021 0:50:58 GMT
No, it was a horrific form of artistic oppression.
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Post by thisguy4000 on Oct 31, 2021 2:44:50 GMT
Is this a joke?
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Post by darkreviewer2013 on Oct 31, 2021 6:07:51 GMT
Little good ever came from censorship of the arts.
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Post by Xcalatë on Oct 31, 2021 7:32:43 GMT
Bad, censorship is never a good thing.
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Post by Dirty Santa PaulsLaugh on Oct 31, 2021 7:49:15 GMT
It wasn't bad, but it hampered creativity in films and only presented a sanitized and christianized version of life.
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Post by Dirty Santa PaulsLaugh on Oct 31, 2021 7:55:31 GMT
Little good ever came from censorship of the arts. In fairness, it was a self-censorship and probably needed at the time. We are a very Christian nation and was even more so back then, so the studios had to contend with fifty states with more than fifty different local public decency and morality codes. A movie considered acceptable for all ages in Cleveland, OH, might not be acceptable for anyone in Mobile, AL. So, the censorship was not coming from the hundreds of local governments per se, but as a means to avoid the films being censored by these local governments.
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Post by Stammerhead on Oct 31, 2021 11:22:08 GMT
Personally I say no but that period does cover Hollywood’s Classic Age so I could be wrong.  |
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Post by vegalyra on Oct 31, 2021 12:09:20 GMT
Little good ever came from censorship of the arts. In fairness, it was a self-censorship and probably needed at the time. We are a very Christian nation and was even more so back then, so the studios had to contend with fifty states with more than fifty different local public decency and morality codes. A movie considered acceptable for all ages in Cleveland, OH, might not be acceptable for anyone in Mobile, AL. So, the censorship was not coming from the hundreds of local governments per se, but as a means to avoid the films being censored by these local governments. This is true. I honestly believe that the motion picture industry might have collapsed or have been severely restricted in its markets but for the code. I don’t think it should come back but it was the right thing for the time. The studios would have been hampered by endless state, county, and local municipality rules on what could be shown otherwise. There perhaps would have been more lawyers and legal staff doing compliance research for Columbia for instance, than all creative talent combined. I think some of the films of the era were so good due to the code and the fact that the creative staff had to find ways to satisfy the code while still making an entertaining film. The Big Sleep is one that I think might not have been as good if they had been able to explicitly show every detail that was rather alluded to. Although racier images of Martha Vickers might not have been a bad thing… |
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Post by mortsahlfan on Oct 31, 2021 19:31:24 GMT
It seems like we already have it back.. But back then, you didn't use curse words, but the content back then couldn't be made today (or at least not distributed with major money)
There's no need for a code today. They already know what is acceptable and self-censor.
Vincent Gallo made what I think is the best movie of the last 45 years, then makes a piece of shit, but it kinda ended his career because people were "offended"
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Post by darkreviewer2013 on Nov 1, 2021 6:20:32 GMT
Little good ever came from censorship of the arts. In fairness, it was a self-censorship and probably needed at the time. We are a very Christian nation and was even more so back then, so the studios had to contend with fifty states with more than fifty different local public decency and morality codes. A movie considered acceptable for all ages in Cleveland, OH, might not be acceptable for anyone in Mobile, AL. So, the censorship was not coming from the hundreds of local governments per se, but as a means to avoid the films being censored by these local governments. I do appreciate the pressure the industry was under at the time and something akin to the Code could probably not have been avoided given the prevailing cultural and political realities of the time, but it would be better to describe it as a necessary evil than an inherent good. The abandonment of the Code in favour of age-based classification from the 60s onwards hugely benefitted the industry. The immense creativity on show in so many 70s classics could never have come to fruition had the Code not been discarded. The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Alien, etc. Its demise was a good day for artistic freedom.
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