SOC 902 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Joseph Breen, Will H. Hays, Motion Picture Production Code

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 902
• Professor: Michael Thorn

Document Summary

Hollywood was censored by federal, state, and municipal governments as early as 1907. 1915: supreme court sanctioned censorship, ruling films as commerce, not free speech. 1922: hollywood created the motion pictures producers and distributors association as a self-censoring body, but it had no teeth and didn"t stop government censors. Operated as a list of don"ts and be carefuls. Coming of sound complicated government censorship and increased call for more. 1930: the production code was put in place. Protestant will hays accepted it as written to keep the censor lobbies at bay. Assumed to have been put into effect until 1934. Not consistently in place in 1930-1934 stages of the production. Code administration operated differently from area to area under the diesses (group of old women from church watching films) Will hays hired catholic joseph breen in 1933 to work on the administration of the code more efficiently.