And so, when the Great Depression killed the box offices, the “Dos and Don’ts” and “Be carefuls” went completely out the window as studies tried to “draw those big urban audiences to vivid horror films, spicy sex comedies and rough gangster dramas,” says Dr. David Lugowski, a professor at Manhattanville College and author of “Queering the (New) Deal,” among other essays. Many Americans were unhappy with Hollywood’s new attempts to increase viewership. Foremost among the disgusted were the Catholics of the Legion of Decency, “who had been lobbying against racy and violent film content for years,” according to Wittern. The Legion of Decency, aided by the majority of American audiences, convinced Holywood to adopt a set of rules dubbed the ‘Production Code.’ However, filmmakers still mostly ignored these new guidelines, much as they had the previous “Dos and Don’ts,” and once again the content of Hollywood’s movies drew the public’s ire. Finally, in 1934, Hollywood gave in “and set up the Production Code Administration (PCA)” says Lugowski. “The Code was seen as something ‘helpful’ and ‘practical,’” explains Lugowski. Not only did it please the American public at the time, it helped prevent other censors from ruining a film. “It was one
thing to have a gay-coded minor character or joke get cut out in some place, but what if that scene also included vital narrative information?” Under Will Hays and the PCA, the Production Code soon gained some teeth. Out went the sex and the gore. With Betty Boop’s skirts finally going past her knees, the nation breathed a sigh of relief.
some areas where the Code did not equivocate,” Lugowski continues, “For instance, one line said that ‘Sexual perversion or any inference to it is forbidden,’” which “was used to try to keep homosexuality out of Hollywood movies.” Of course, Lugowski adds, “It never fully worked. There remained the effeminate ‘pansy’ or ‘sissy’ comics and sometimes ‘mannish’ women who were read by some folks as being LGBTQ+ in some ways.” These stereotypes eventually turned into queer-coded villains (villains given traits that are associated with LGBTQ+ stereotypes, often to make them appear more dangerous or evil). The Code was also especially harsh on the representation of women and female sexuality. “The Code did sort of limit the kind of roles created for female characters,” Fuller-Seeley explains. “The rules said it would be much more difficult to make a film that showed a powerful woman dealing with adversity and solving problems and being in charge of herself.” However, there was a rule in the Code that said “you can’t insult anybody of any race or any nationality or any creed,” says Fuller-Seeley. Of course, such rules did not really work, and “African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx peoples and more were often stereotyped in mainstream entertainment,” Lugowski states.
“State and local governments started censoring movies long before the movie industry started doing it themselves” The rules in the Code ranged from “no obscene language,” to “no interracial romances.” It specifically states “No picture should lower the moral standards of those who see it.” Under the Code, “You can’t show direct violence,” Fuller-Seeley says, and “good guys must always win and bad guys must always lose,” and, “that bad morals must be punished.” Of course, what counts as ‘bad morals’ is a debate that has been haunting philosophers and theologians for millenium. So the Code mostly just “enforced a rather white, Christian, heterosexual, middle class (or wealthy) vision of America,” explains Lugowski. However, “the Production Code mostly ‘suggested’ things or said that a given film ‘should try to do X’ or ‘should not suggest Y,’ but there are
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