RESEARCH ESSAY
THE GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD
VS.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF CENSORSHIP
SARPER GOKBULUT- 6876943
This research essay will present an analysis of how the society was effected by two particular factors that triggered the age of censorship, which consisted of people's stiff attitude towards the films' moral accuracy in terms of their historical context and a series of Hollywood scandals that were resulted in overshadowing the industry's reputation and portraying the movie starts as immoral figures and criminals. This essay will first argue the main reasons of why the public demanded censorship for movies, and then examine what ignited Will Hay's Production Code. The last argument of the paper will be on Pre-Code era where the successive productions of gangster films like The Public Enemy (1931) and Scarface (1932) pushed the limits of the Code for its reinforcement in 1934, because of their bad influences on children.
The starting point of my first argument on the pre-production censorship system adopted by the Hays Office, goes back to the mid 1900's where the origins of entertainment films at Nickelodeon theaters had both adult and children under its influence during the Victorian age and Progressive reform movement. Every age group of people were being entertained and amused by what they were watching until it triggered some harsh manners of a particular society who were thinking those movies were mocking labor unions, suffragettes and Victorian morals. With proliferation of Progressive reformers, the corruption in government was divulged along with a series of exposes such as: prostitution, substance abuse; alcohol and drug, child labor and urban living conditions which agitated and worried the American public, particularly for their children who would unwittingly comprehend and adopt immoral values from the movies. This concern was stated by, Jane Addams, the consummate reformer,