The Hay's Code

In doing research on Film in the 30's, I stumbled upon an interesting parallel in regards to the "Since Yesterday" readings. For instance, until the enforcement (in 1934, despite being adopted in 1930) of the Motion Picture Production Code, a self-censoring mechanism installed by Hollywood in the face of both boycotts on the part of groups such as the League of Decency (a Catholic based group that encouraged boycotts of films deemed immoral by the Vatican) and the threat of intervention by the US government, films were pretty close, in regards to sex and violence, to what we think of as normal today. In terms of film studies, these are known as "precode" films. Themes dealing with pre or extra-martial sex, drug use, and violence were all common. This is interesting when one considers the fact that the ratings system (G,PG,PG-13, R, NC-17) wasn't adopted until decades later. Thus, in essence, all films were rated "G", as in, geared towards audiences of all ages.
I find the parallel in the pendulum swing American culture took from the roaring twenties to the Depression-as is described by Allen, Americans were too busy trying to get by to be terribly impressed with the novelty of the "new morality" found in the 2o's. The more conservative forces at play in America undoubtedly did not miss the chance to validate what just a short time before must have seemed like outmoded, archaic values. This, I think, is a large part of what drove the rather popular effort to "clean up" the movies. This theme of an attempt to regain innocence lost reverberates throughout all of our reading, in particular the ones from Hard Times. One notices such a trend towards innocence in many of the post-code hits of the 30's. Hence my favorite genre of depression-era film: the Screwball comedy. In films such as It Happened One Night, the cat-and-mouse game the filmmakers and writers played with the censors had the effect of elevating the quality in a way not anticipated by the prudish Hay's code. The film is at once a Norman Rockwellian paean to Americana, and a series of thinly veiled sexual references.