The Hays Code left its mark on cinema, but the invention of technicolor revolutionized it. The Wizard of Oz was a prime example. Watch our video here: bit.ly/2GPLmK2
The timeline presented of how the code came to be doesn't work: Herbert Hoover was POTUS until 1932, when FDR took office. The stock market crash that precipitated the start of The Great Depression was in August 1929. The New Deal programs started in 1933, which is the same year the League of Decency formed. This video says the studios voluntarily adopted The Production Code out of fear of regulation by FDR's administration "but then in 1930 The Great Depression hit". So the expert's claim that fear of interference from the FDR administration drove the studios doesn't make sense because it didn't exist yet.
actually the Hays Code was just a suggestion that Will Hays sent to producers, no one followed it though (I'm pretty upset they didn't mention it in this video though too)
White slavery was basically the term used back then for human trafficking or sexual slavery. I understand it is a racialised term, but I think focusing on the race aspect discredits the fact that portraying sexual slavery on screen would still be seen as morally wrong today.
To be fair, the Legion was never officially recognized by the Church, and While it proclaimed to "Work" for the Church, it was in fact just a loose confederation of catholic americans promoting the "American Catholicism", which is the most conservative and puritan version of catholicism possible. In fact, the Church never talked about decency in movies or censoring them. It was just some catholic's opinion on those issue. See, for example, how those two believed that interracial unions were "unholy" even tho, for a Catholic, they are not evil at all.
MrStephenRGilman Encyclicals are not official statements of the church. Only the Guy in charge at the time. Historically, most encyclicals are about how the other encyclicals are wrong
The claim made in the original comment was that the Church "never even talked about" decency in movies, and that it was just "some catholic's opinion". The encyclical demonstrates that SPECIFIC claim is inaccurate.
Fun fact: contraception only became legal in Ireland in 1980 after being banned by the Catholic Church. Before then my grandma used to smuggle loads of condoms over from England - as after 6 kids she’d had enough!
The good thing about the code was that it forced screenwriters to figure out creative ways to skirt around the code. People like Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges would write witty dialogue filled with innuendo that was actually funny and intelligent. Now we have fart jokes
@@fruitygarlic3601 thats because there are no standards anymore and now writers have to try to make crude acts funny. Except, they aren't funny. Just look at Kevin Hart or Will Ferrell.
@@docsouth7823but @@docsouth7823. Your statement doesn’t even make sense, if there’s no standards than they don’t “have to make crude jokes” they’re simply allowed to. Maybe you think that’s a cheaper form of comedy but that’s irrelevant.
Love these short pieces! I didn’t know as much about Breen, glad to hear his story as well. I always understood that there was a variety of reason the PCA fell. One of the biggest being the defiance of Hughes’ Outlaw film in which he called independently operated theaters and asked each if they would play his film without the seal of approval. Awesome work on these, keep it up! 🎥🤘🏻
Hitchcock devised a scene in Notorious (1946) that circumvented the Production Code's ban on kisses longer than three seconds by having his actors disengage every three seconds, murmur and nuzzle each other, then start again. He's a genius.
Catholic church has always been the norm. Even in the field of architecture. Furthermore, Most of the monarchial government today is patterned after the Catholic hierarchy.
@@TradRaider Yes you understood the subtext of the question from four years ago. Also Judging by your profile pic and background you need to watch some checkmate Lincolnites.
Seems like there must be more to the story, because the Catholic Church was never that influential in America. European immigration was overwhelmingly from Protestant nations up until the Irish famine, whereupon it still continued to hold the majority to a lesser degree. At this point African-Americans have won more U.S. Presidential elections than Catholics. Were the major Hollywood studios heavily Catholic back in those days?
wdym more African Americans have won the oval office than Catholics? Obama is first Black President (Even though he was mixed) And JFK was first and only Irish, and Catholic President. The same amount of both ave held the presidency sir.
Well maybe people are mad at an institution that slaughtered many innocents in the past 🤷🏽♂️ it’s like nazis, except everybody just seemed to forgive em
One interesting thing to note is that because of the strict rules on sexual display, a lot of movies featuring women were forced to treat them as human characters and not sexual objects at the mercy of the slow-pan male gaze. Women were smart, competent people in movies. When the sexual revolution happened and sexuality was allowed to be seen on screen, women became bimbo objects again. "Once we entered the bedroom, we couldn't leave."
Storm Bringer no one said they wouldn't, but equating that to forced censorship is like saying that if there's a really bad movie and no one sees it that people's taste is cracking movies
@@dgarr2224 The Code nearly banned Citizen Kane and would have banned both Godfather films, it was a disaster. The Golden Age was due to advancements in sound and picture making it inevitable, but the 70's is usually considered to have the best quality of film, since you had a combo of little censorship, director discretion, hyper-realism and new ideas as opposed to regurgitating the same Westerns over and over again which is what started to plague the Hay's Code. Most damning of all, it would take minimal effort for modern Marvel/Star Wars garbage to be in-line with the Hay's Code, but nearly every actually decent modern movie (Three Billboards, Banshees of Inisherin, Licorice Pizza, Tar, etc.) would be banned.
@@philosopher24680 Good points. I won't say the rating system was perfect, but there's no way it didn't raise the bar for films of the 50s. Great films aren't great because of the evil it portrays, that stuff can be cut and the quality of the movie doesn't have to change at all. Overall having restrictions improves quality as more directors and writers spend time on writing something of substance, instead of succumbing to over-sensuality and/or mindless entertainment. Also, I think the 50s edge out the 70s.
I am genuinely curious about this. If a Catholic says objectification of women is bad, (which it is) it's censorship But if a Feminist group says objectification of women is bad, (which it is) it's a womens' rights issue? Please someone explain this to me.
Now i finally understand why old americans are so mad with modern society. Society when they were young was the equivalent of the life of a sheltered Lady during the XI century.
Don't be so quick to discount the Legion of Decency as being black-and-white villains of the industry. It's important to realize that there were no rating systems for movies at this time, and they were trying to establish a system so that kids wouldn't be seeing really disturbing content at the time. While it failed, it still resulted in the MPAA ratings later on that we use today. Ultimately it's much more nuanced than stated in this video and you can't apply the morals of today to the 1930's.
Andrew Vaughan it's kinda your fault if you're taking kids to a movie without knowing the contents of the movie - there's many ways to figure that out (like watching it alone!).
People in the 30s didn't have a lot of money to waste like that. Your average parent back then wouldn't have had the spare change to go to the theatre and watch it by themselves to see if they can watch it with their kids. It wasn't like now were you could buy a DVD and watch it at home. Also, movies back then were mainly seen as a social medium, even today it's still seen as a little bit weird to go to the theatre by yourself.
For everyone saying the Church had no right for what they were doing, you have to realize that all the Church did was not go to movies, theater studios then decided to accept of rating system influenced by the Church That's how business works, if people don't buy your product either stop selling or change.
I hate to type these words but your comment does have merit. And when the fact that money might well be the only 'mannon' that all in this society bow to, it does put this decision set in a much different light, even if it still stinks.
It's interesting to revisit these topics nowadays. I was a lecturer in History of Cinema, and the Production Code has always fascinated me. The Motion Picture Production Code wasn't born just because Catholics wanted (also, some Catholics being involved doesn't mean that the CATHOLIC CHURCH as a kind of Organization was the one censoring movies). In fact, William Hays -that gave name as the chairman of the MPPDA to the Code- wasn't a Catholic. What seems interesting to me, is that acknowledgment of the importance of cinema's influence on society. In the times of Harvey Weinstein, it seems interesting to see that some problems have always been inside Hollywood. There were some scandals in the 1920s which lead to this idea of cleaning not only what was shown on screen, but also what was going on inside Hollywood. And as Thomas Doherty says in the video... Those years led to amazing works of art in Hollywood. Very interesting, indeed!
During the Golden Age of Hollywood, studios would make biblical movies, like The Ten Commandments, so they could get away with showing more sex and violence under the guise of being accurate to the source material.
The timeline presented of how the code came to be doesn't work: Herbert Hoover was POTUS until 1932, when FDR took office. The stock market crash that precipitated the start of The Great Depression was in August 1929. The New Deal programs started in 1933, which is the same year the League of Decency formed. This video says the studios voluntarily adopted The Production Code out of fear of regulation by FDR's administration "but then in 1930 The Great Depression hit". So the expert's claim that fear of interference from the FDR administration drove the studios doesn't make sense because it didn't exist yet.
Omg bring this back!!! Where is Hollywood now? Battling sex scandals because of their own doing. As a Catholic I think its so stupid an obviously immoral to have sex and violence in movies. Common Hollywood. Oh but it sells so let’s keep doing it even when it hurts our society. Sounds prudent ...
There are movies like that the hays code was against black people and against criticizing the government so are you okay with the government being your god
How exactly did the Catholic Church enforce their rules? They weren't working for the government, they didn't have government agents working for them, and they held no political or legal authority to censor any film. I get that film studios wanted to censor themselves so the government didn't have to, but how were they allowed to censor every film? Wouldn't some studios object to certain films being censored? If a studio released an uncensored film, wouldn't that be a strike against the censorship program for not doing their job right instead of against the studio? Does any of this make sense?
What saddens me is how the Chruch just abuses power like that. Its like if my High School English teacher told me not to go see the Avengers because they didn't like it. The Church was abusing the trust and the authority of their position and should be ashamed.
Jewish folks owned the production companies in many cases. Catholics don't like Jews. If they didn't agree, their movies would get killed. If there is one thing life should have taught you by now when making money, the path of least resistance is the best one.
The church actually did not enforce anything on the general public . Movies that were condemned by the legion of decency were considered as immoral and hence Catholic did not saw them , many catholics and protestants also boycotted the theatres which showed these movies. Because of this Bollywood often heard the advice of the legion. It was like saying if you don't listen to our restrictions your movies going to be a flop .
No. Censorship is when you're prohibited to make certain types of movies. In this scenario, the Catholic Church set rules for content to not be boycotted. It's different, although you can still be pissed off. Real censorship is still a huge thing in a lot of governments and it gets people murdered and exiled.
Uhm, Vox, your chronology is wrong. The Great Depression happened before FDR was elected. Movies studios can't have adopted guidelines in reaction to New Deal policies before FDR was elected and created the New Deal.
The church was so concerned about the "morality" in movies being made that they forgot to make sure their children didn't get sexually abused for decades behind closed doors.
Look to the saints if you want to see the spirit of Catholicism ..when a catholic man does wrong , the whole religion is blamed ..the basis of Catholicism is that we men are sinners "original sin"..i guess people don't understand that , its such a beautiful ancient religion i ask that you look beyond the surface
i feel like there is more information than what is in this video. Is there a possibility of an extended version of this topic? Great video im re watching it
Meanwhile, the Catholic church should have been focusing on ... oh I don't know... controlling and stopping the rampant child sexual abuse within their churches?? MAYBE??
The point he makes at the end is very stupid. So the censorship wasn't bad because a lot of movies were made during the time it was applied? What exactly would stop those movies from being made without the censorship? They would all still have been made, but would be even better without the restraint on the directors' creativity. Plus a lot of other great movies would have been made, even if they didn't abide by the moral codes of the church.
Surprised you didn't mention the influence the Catholic church maintains today, particularly exemplified by killing the Golden Compass franchise. I kept waiting for you to go in that direction.
They try the same with the Da Vince Code. Here in Brazil ever single Priest of every single church formally spoke in masses that people should not read the books.
Daphnie Starr ???? What? This was widely-reported news at the time. New Line Cinema was originally slated to make film adaptations of the entire _His Dark Materials_ trilogy, but they caved to (very public) pressure from the Catholic church and cancelled the project after the first film despite huge box office success (it earned something like double its budget in cinemas), which lead to cast members boycotting the studio. The trilogy was written to be a secular answer to C.S. Lewis's overtly Christian allegorical _Chronicles of Narnia_.
Yeah, and the MPAA today is outdated, unnecessary, and counterproductive AF too, also simply run by interest groups with their own agendas. We should replace them and simplify the rating system, so filmmakers and producers don’t have to alter their intended visions to please studios, lobbies, and executives, and force attempts to “maximize profits” or “reach a larger audience “.
Censorship is something the government does. This was a voluntary collaboration by the Hollywood studios and HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ACTUAL CATHOLIC CHURCH... It was simply a group of devout Catholics rating movies, and most Catholics and other religious or non religious people that wanted decent, morally acceptable movies just followed the rating because that was what they wanted. Consequently, the studios wanted to produce movies with acceptable ratings so they could have increased viewership. You have to keep in mind that this was a business decision, and no one was told what kind of movies they could or could not see. Also remember that morality was much different back then since religion played a much more central role in every day life than it does today.
@@azazel166 They come from a religious community and are to be strict . Also speaking they were not created by the church they were created by members of the church . There is a difference between them
Were they really wrong? Majority of the Hollywood actors specifically the actresses were subjected to horrid abuse. It isn't an accident that drug and alcohol abuse was rampant.
Ok cmon, what China is doing is so much worse, this is honestly not even that bad... they created a code for movies that is now a very good organization
U guys totally missed the point. Point is that without it we would only have trash movies from that time and with it we have some of the finest movies ever
Ryan Barr he doesn't say that at the end. He says that regardless of the censorship we still have great works of art, but who's to say we wouldn't have better movies without the censorship?
"Legion of Decency." Hypocrites. And the last argument doesn't hold water. Just because there were good films made during this period doesn't mean that the films suppressed or not made were bad.
Before the Catholics got hold of things, there was this: "In 1922, after some risqué films and a series of off-screen scandals involving Hollywood stars, the studios enlisted Presbyterian elder William H. 'Will' Hays, a figure of unblemished rectitude, to rehabilitate Hollywood's image. Hays, later nicknamed the motion picture 'Czar,' was paid the then-lavish sum of $100,000 a year (equivalent to more than $1.4 million in 2015 dollars)." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Code_Hollywood
Some of the best works ever made came post Hayes. The movies made during the code were creative and good in spite of the code, not because of it. I can give you a massive list of great movies that would never be made under the code. Chances are you enjoy media that wouldn't have been made under said code
I hate theocracy and I’m decidedly not catholic. BUT I’m sick of “PG” movies being enough to make anyone with a sense of decency squirm. Truly many of them are making humans increasingly immoral and heartless.
If anyone has seen the ending of the film Rebecca, the Production code seriously botched it. The logic that was in the original novel got really messed up.
@cyrusthechad7256 true but in terms of Hollywood, The Hays Code and the Institutional Power of the Catholic Church and Christianity as a whole had over Western society at that time, absolutely.
"Even when they explore the darkest depths of the soul or the most unsettling aspects of evil, artists give voice in a way to the universal desire for redemption"~~Pope John Paul II
That's very interesting. I'm surprised there was no '1st ammendment' argument back then. I remember a documentary about Irelands very strict censorship (playboy banned until 1990!) and they gave an example with the movie Casablanca. Kissing was cut, and so was any reference to adultery. I'd say everyone left the cinema very confused after the ~50 minute movie...
Now, CC can't control censorship anymore. In this age of technology wherein everyone has smartphone, we can watch and read whatever we want. Look at the society now, so individualistic. We do not trust authority anymore. We always feel high about ourselves. All of us wants to be the boss. The result? We tend to do what it feels right, rather than what is right.
Nobody censored Padmaavati, just that quite a few people wanted to laumch a massive boycott to get the film pulled, no official Hindu organization condemned it.
![🎤 ไปกันต่อออ! จับฉลากร้องเพลง x P’ #XXSIVK [EP.2] (1/2) เพลงของใครจึ้งสุดน้าา 💓🎤 #MXFRUIT](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/mLI_K0sAS4o/mqdefault.jpg)
The Hays Code left its mark on cinema, but the invention of technicolor revolutionized it. The Wizard of Oz was a prime example. Watch our video here: bit.ly/2GPLmK2
And the Golden Compass (sequel)
The timeline presented of how the code came to be doesn't work: Herbert Hoover was POTUS until 1932, when FDR took office. The stock market crash that precipitated the start of The Great Depression was in August 1929. The New Deal programs started in 1933, which is the same year the League of Decency formed. This video says the studios voluntarily adopted The Production Code out of fear of regulation by FDR's administration "but then in 1930 The Great Depression hit". So the expert's claim that fear of interference from the FDR administration drove the studios doesn't make sense because it didn't exist yet.
Vox
Why didn't you speak of the Hayes Code until your comment? It is my understanding that this censorship occurred because of a man named of Hayes.
actually the Hays Code was just a suggestion that Will Hays sent to producers, no one followed it though (I'm pretty upset they didn't mention it in this video though too)
Matt Tobin
Okay, thank you for the clarification.
No wonder the movies of the 70's after the code days had so much sex and violence.
How far we have fallen.
Yes humans have issues sometimes
@Cardboard Cape
To little violence in film?
And no wonder how people today are so sexually degenerated leading to fewer families.
I love the 70s and 80s movies
White slavery was basically the term used back then for human trafficking or sexual slavery. I understand it is a racialised term, but I think focusing on the race aspect discredits the fact that portraying sexual slavery on screen would still be seen as morally wrong today.
Only glorifying it.
Do you have a source for that?
@@quikskoprbro968 yea your mom
@@quikskoprbro968 actually when i searched in google . it show exact result. just search white slavery meaning
To be fair, the Legion was never officially recognized by the Church, and While it proclaimed to "Work" for the Church, it was in fact just a loose confederation of catholic americans promoting the "American Catholicism", which is the most conservative and puritan version of catholicism possible.
In fact, the Church never talked about decency in movies or censoring them. It was just some catholic's opinion on those issue. See, for example, how those two believed that interracial unions were "unholy" even tho, for a Catholic, they are not evil at all.
suuuure it wasnt
The Catholic Church- outside of America- is an entirely different beast
w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_29061936_vigilanti-cura.html
MrStephenRGilman
Encyclicals are not official statements of the church. Only the Guy in charge at the time. Historically, most encyclicals are about how the other encyclicals are wrong
The claim made in the original comment was that the Church "never even talked about" decency in movies, and that it was just "some catholic's opinion". The encyclical demonstrates that SPECIFIC claim is inaccurate.
Weird how a country with vast anti catholic sentiment would take their guidelines
AmericanNohbuddy ™ A lot of rural Protestants were upset about the content of films as well.
Well humans are incompetent at following simple instructions like *sticking together* so....
that wasn't going to happen....
Nice copypasta, bro.
th-cam.com/video/k8QE4-BEy4E/w-d-xo.html
because catholics and protestants share a lot in common in a moral standpoint
Money Maker Christians stick together I guess...
Fun fact: contraception only became legal in Ireland in 1980 after being banned by the Catholic Church. Before then my grandma used to smuggle loads of condoms over from England - as after 6 kids she’d had enough!
Damn your grandma was getting it in 😂😂😂
Savage
Science with Katie Catholics are uneducated despite being literate.They want to continue all rudimentary practicees , why Ireland banned abortion?
Something tells me all the comments are Irish people complaining about the Catholic church
Science with Katie My grand-uncle Bill (an Irish person) has strong opinions against abortion.
no, they didn't make great films *because* of the code, but *in spite of* its limitations.
*Comment about Religion*
Justin Y. *irate, barely intelligible and unsolicited random reply*
😡
Justin Y
*_Reply that Expresses Belief that Jesus Is coming_*
Juan Cena
*makes a claim that God doesn't exist*
*Comment about asking for likes*
REEEEEEEEEEEEE
The good thing about the code was that it forced screenwriters to figure out creative ways to skirt around the code. People like Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges would write witty dialogue filled with innuendo that was actually funny and intelligent. Now we have fart jokes
You're just choosing to watch bad movies.
@@fruitygarlic3601 thats because there are no standards anymore and now writers have to try to make crude acts funny. Except, they aren't funny. Just look at Kevin Hart or Will Ferrell.
@@docsouth7823but @@docsouth7823. Your statement doesn’t even make sense, if there’s no standards than they don’t “have to make crude jokes” they’re simply allowed to. Maybe you think that’s a cheaper form of comedy but that’s irrelevant.
Love these short pieces!
I didn’t know as much about Breen, glad to hear his story as well. I always understood that there was a variety of reason the PCA fell. One of the biggest being the defiance of Hughes’ Outlaw film in which he called independently operated theaters and asked each if they would play his film without the seal of approval.
Awesome work on these, keep it up! 🎥🤘🏻
Hitchcock devised a scene in Notorious (1946) that circumvented the Production Code's ban on kisses longer than three seconds by having his actors disengage every three seconds, murmur and nuzzle each other, then start again.
He's a genius.
So basically the Catholic Church created a rating system for movies
omegadan thank you!
Catholic church has always been the norm. Even in the field of architecture. Furthermore, Most of the monarchial government today is patterned after the Catholic hierarchy.
omegadan yup, the horror!!!
The Catholic Church, the Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen of film ratings
Not even the Church, just Catholics, not officially supported by the Church.
How did fears of Roosevelt making a censorship board scare movie makers into censoring three years before he became president?
Vox Lies
@@TradRaider Yes you understood the subtext of the question from four years ago. Also Judging by your profile pic and background you need to watch some checkmate Lincolnites.
Seems like there must be more to the story, because the Catholic Church was never that influential in America. European immigration was overwhelmingly from Protestant nations up until the Irish famine, whereupon it still continued to hold the majority to a lesser degree. At this point African-Americans have won more U.S. Presidential elections than Catholics. Were the major Hollywood studios heavily Catholic back in those days?
wdym more African Americans have won the oval office than Catholics?
Obama is first Black President (Even though he was mixed)
And JFK was first and only Irish, and Catholic President.
The same amount of both ave held the presidency sir.
@@bruhsoundeffect2882 Obama won two elections while Kennedy won only one. Now that Biden has won, it’s even.
The flying nun..
Hollywood studios were and still are heavily jewish
Sometimes restriction brings out the creativity of a writer and make masterpieces
Other times it strangles creativity.
@@artman40 both very true statements!
@@thelegendarydarkknight585 Restrictions kept Ren & Stimpy watchable but killed Betty Boop.
I'm not looking forward to seeing the comments...
James Me neither
it's just a bunch of really young edgelords who probably discovered what atheism is recently and are very mad mommy and daddy drag them to church.
James This is relatively peaceful for Vox's standards.
bfchang don’t cut yourself on that edge
Well maybe people are mad at an institution that slaughtered many innocents in the past 🤷🏽♂️ it’s like nazis, except everybody just seemed to forgive em
One interesting thing to note is that because of the strict rules on sexual display, a lot of movies featuring women were forced to treat them as human characters and not sexual objects at the mercy of the slow-pan male gaze. Women were smart, competent people in movies. When the sexual revolution happened and sexuality was allowed to be seen on screen, women became bimbo objects again.
"Once we entered the bedroom, we couldn't leave."
The hell you talkin bout? Women are smart and competent in a lot of newer movies.
This is the most intelligent comment I’ve read all day.
@@100secks2 That's kind of a recent phenomenon, though...
Bookmark comment later
I mean the Catholic Church don't actively censor movies, they proposed guidelines that the studios agreed to, Tue church didn't force them to agree
If they didn't agree to the terms, they would lose ticket sells.
Storm Bringer no one said they wouldn't, but equating that to forced censorship is like saying that if there's a really bad movie and no one sees it that people's taste is cracking movies
naive as f*** response.
@@creepystares9853 - Bigotry-and-emotion-prompted response. You're attacking a fact because you hate.
So it was the Golden Age when censored by Catholics? Got it.
Yes, quite based
@@dgarr2224 The Code nearly banned Citizen Kane and would have banned both Godfather films, it was a disaster. The Golden Age was due to advancements in sound and picture making it inevitable, but the 70's is usually considered to have the best quality of film, since you had a combo of little censorship, director discretion, hyper-realism and new ideas as opposed to regurgitating the same Westerns over and over again which is what started to plague the Hay's Code. Most damning of all, it would take minimal effort for modern Marvel/Star Wars garbage to be in-line with the Hay's Code, but nearly every actually decent modern movie (Three Billboards, Banshees of Inisherin, Licorice Pizza, Tar, etc.) would be banned.
@@philosopher24680 Good points. I won't say the rating system was perfect, but there's no way it didn't raise the bar for films of the 50s. Great films aren't great because of the evil it portrays, that stuff can be cut and the quality of the movie doesn't have to change at all. Overall having restrictions improves quality as more directors and writers spend time on writing something of substance, instead of succumbing to over-sensuality and/or mindless entertainment. Also, I think the 50s edge out the 70s.
If you really think about it, the title of the video should be how Catholic Church created Hollywood's Golden Age.
I am genuinely curious about this.
If a Catholic says objectification of women is bad, (which it is) it's censorship
But if a Feminist group says objectification of women is bad, (which it is) it's a womens' rights issue?
Please someone explain this to me.
Well you see, according to Vox, being Catholic is bad, but being a woman is good
@@TradRaider indeed
Bookmark comment later
Now i finally understand why old americans are so mad with modern society.
Society when they were young was the equivalent of the life of a sheltered Lady during the XI century.
You may be overestimating the 11th century...
Because they don’t support degeneracy
Don't be so quick to discount the Legion of Decency as being black-and-white villains of the industry. It's important to realize that there were no rating systems for movies at this time, and they were trying to establish a system so that kids wouldn't be seeing really disturbing content at the time. While it failed, it still resulted in the MPAA ratings later on that we use today. Ultimately it's much more nuanced than stated in this video and you can't apply the morals of today to the 1930's.
"Show as much blood and gore as you want as long as you don't show a nipple" -MPAA
"protect the children" isn't a good argument for censorship. That's what parents are for who, you know, could just not take kids to see movies
Bradley well the parents themselves had no idea what would be shown either, so they were in the dark as well
Andrew Vaughan it's kinda your fault if you're taking kids to a movie without knowing the contents of the movie - there's many ways to figure that out (like watching it alone!).
People in the 30s didn't have a lot of money to waste like that. Your average parent back then wouldn't have had the spare change to go to the theatre and watch it by themselves to see if they can watch it with their kids. It wasn't like now were you could buy a DVD and watch it at home. Also, movies back then were mainly seen as a social medium, even today it's still seen as a little bit weird to go to the theatre by yourself.
For everyone saying the Church had no right for what they were doing, you have to realize that all the Church did was not go to movies, theater studios then decided to accept of rating system influenced by the Church
That's how business works, if people don't buy your product either stop selling or change.
I hate to type these words but your comment does have merit. And when the fact that money might well be the only 'mannon' that all in this society bow to, it does put this decision set in a much different light, even if it still stinks.
@@BigBlack81 Oh it definitely stinks, I hate how money influences everything.
It's interesting to revisit these topics nowadays. I was a lecturer in History of Cinema, and the Production Code has always fascinated me. The Motion Picture Production Code wasn't born just because Catholics wanted (also, some Catholics being involved doesn't mean that the CATHOLIC CHURCH as a kind of Organization was the one censoring movies). In fact, William Hays -that gave name as the chairman of the MPPDA to the Code- wasn't a Catholic.
What seems interesting to me, is that acknowledgment of the importance of cinema's influence on society. In the times of Harvey Weinstein, it seems interesting to see that some problems have always been inside Hollywood. There were some scandals in the 1920s which lead to this idea of cleaning not only what was shown on screen, but also what was going on inside Hollywood. And as Thomas Doherty says in the video... Those years led to amazing works of art in Hollywood. Very interesting, indeed!
During the Golden Age of Hollywood, studios would make biblical movies, like The Ten Commandments, so they could get away with showing more sex and violence under the guise of being accurate to the source material.
The church stopped the over production of movies about sex violence and alcohol caused by the Great depression how horrifying!
We need to go back to this!
The timeline presented of how the code came to be doesn't work: Herbert Hoover was POTUS until 1932, when FDR took office. The stock market crash that precipitated the start of The Great Depression was in August 1929. The New Deal programs started in 1933, which is the same year the League of Decency formed. This video says the studios voluntarily adopted The Production Code out of fear of regulation by FDR's administration "but then in 1930 The Great Depression hit". So the expert's claim that fear of interference from the FDR administration drove the studios doesn't make sense because it didn't exist yet.
Omg bring this back!!! Where is Hollywood now? Battling sex scandals because of their own doing. As a Catholic I think its so stupid an obviously immoral to have sex and violence in movies. Common Hollywood. Oh but it sells so let’s keep doing it even when it hurts our society. Sounds prudent ...
Daphnie Starr Lol nice troll job.
There are movies like that the hays code was against black people and against criticizing the government so are you okay with the government being your god
@@dwayneasher6765 Movies like Dumbo and Song of the South weren't attacking black people though.
Wish they would do it again.
Why?
If your going to criticize religions, don't just target Christianity alone. Otherwise you might be accused of being biased.
How exactly did the Catholic Church enforce their rules? They weren't working for the government, they didn't have government agents working for them, and they held no political or legal authority to censor any film. I get that film studios wanted to censor themselves so the government didn't have to, but how were they allowed to censor every film? Wouldn't some studios object to certain films being censored? If a studio released an uncensored film, wouldn't that be a strike against the censorship program for not doing their job right instead of against the studio? Does any of this make sense?
What saddens me is how the Chruch just abuses power like that. Its like if my High School English teacher told me not to go see the Avengers because they didn't like it. The Church was abusing the trust and the authority of their position and should be ashamed.
+DAVID MELLA
Just like modern SJWs.
Jewish folks owned the production companies in many cases. Catholics don't like Jews. If they didn't agree, their movies would get killed. If there is one thing life should have taught you by now when making money, the path of least resistance is the best one.
@@shadowthehedgehog3113 They did not enforce anything . this simply prohibited the faithful from seeing these movies under the Bane of mortal sin
The church actually did not enforce anything on the general public . Movies that were condemned by the legion of decency were considered as immoral and hence Catholic did not saw them , many catholics and protestants also boycotted the theatres which showed these movies.
Because of this Bollywood often heard the advice of the legion. It was like saying if you don't listen to our restrictions your movies going to be a flop .
This was not censorship, this was a voluntary decision.
That makes it better?
It was voluntary in an attempt to avoid true censorship
That's like saying suicide is better than murder.
Self-censorship is *still* censorship.
No. Censorship is when you're prohibited to make certain types of movies. In this scenario, the Catholic Church set rules for content to not be boycotted. It's different, although you can still be pissed off. Real censorship is still a huge thing in a lot of governments and it gets people murdered and exiled.
Jovan Mitrić no its not if they chose to do it lol
I love how they tried to install moral guide lines but it backfired in the worst possible way.
Nahh It Got Retardedly Woke
I hope Catholics get rid of Hollywood!
Uhm, Vox, your chronology is wrong. The Great Depression happened before FDR was elected. Movies studios can't have adopted guidelines in reaction to New Deal policies before FDR was elected and created the New Deal.
Ah the Hays code, the original “Cancel Culture”
Th original is even older, goes way back to the time of Socrates.
That “cancel culture”-which should be restored-was based on morality-the kind we have now is based on political whims.
@@rmazzella5303it was not about morality they just wanted people to obey the government
The church was so concerned about the "morality" in movies being made that they forgot to make sure their children didn't get sexually abused for decades behind closed doors.
Those were perverts who infiltrated and did not believe Catholic teaching.
@@jlouis4407 No true Scottsman. What a suuurpriiiise...
Exactly!
Religion and the Church did not forced censorship, they proposed it, and the other end accepted their proposal.
So the Catholic Church invented the golden age of Hollywood
Yes
Good I like the church even more now
Look to the saints if you want to see the spirit of Catholicism ..when a catholic man does wrong , the whole religion is blamed ..the basis of Catholicism is that we men are sinners "original sin"..i guess people don't understand that , its such a beautiful ancient religion i ask that you look beyond the surface
i feel like there is more information than what is in this video. Is there a possibility of an extended version of this topic? Great video im re watching it
Read the book “An empire of their own”
Are you saying that the New Deal came before the Great Depression?
Thank you, Catholic Church for the best movies ever produced by Hollywood.
No old movies are almost impossible to watch
@@jackwyatt3854 use your head
ben hur, king of kings, the ten commandments, spartacus and some others are the best movies ever made
@@wlfgang
Produced in spite of, not thanks to, the code
The Catholic Church should revive this practice. Perhaps even in unity with other Christian sects, so we can have a cleaner movie industry.
Meanwhile, the Catholic church should have been focusing on ... oh I don't know... controlling and stopping the rampant child sexual abuse within their churches?? MAYBE??
Really going to disable comments and ratings? Not willing to stand by your own work? Classy Vox, classy.
The point he makes at the end is very stupid. So the censorship wasn't bad because a lot of movies were made during the time it was applied? What exactly would stop those movies from being made without the censorship? They would all still have been made, but would be even better without the restraint on the directors' creativity. Plus a lot of other great movies would have been made, even if they didn't abide by the moral codes of the church.
Surprised you didn't mention the influence the Catholic church maintains today, particularly exemplified by killing the Golden Compass franchise. I kept waiting for you to go in that direction.
SleinJinn ????
They try the same with the Da Vince Code. Here in Brazil ever single Priest of every single church formally spoke in masses that people should not read the books.
Daphnie Starr
???? What?
This was widely-reported news at the time. New Line Cinema was originally slated to make film adaptations of the entire _His Dark Materials_ trilogy, but they caved to (very public) pressure from the Catholic church and cancelled the project after the first film despite huge box office success (it earned something like double its budget in cinemas), which lead to cast members boycotting the studio. The trilogy was written to be a secular answer to C.S. Lewis's overtly Christian allegorical _Chronicles of Narnia_.
SleinJinn the Golden Compass was my childhood, ; - ;
That movie sucked.
Those early pre-code talkies are some of my favorite movies.
Religion ruins everything.
Yeah, and the MPAA today is outdated, unnecessary, and counterproductive AF too, also simply run by interest groups with their own agendas. We should replace them and simplify the rating system, so filmmakers and producers don’t have to alter their intended visions to please studios, lobbies, and executives, and force attempts to “maximize profits” or “reach a larger audience “.
Glad that’s not the case anymore lol
perukito. Yeah now we have good ol regular media instead showing us what what they want us to see
yeah, now we have liberal propaganda.
perukito. Now we have shitty hollywood.
Utkarsh Dave Sahni much better than censorship.
agreed
Censorship is something the government does. This was a voluntary collaboration by the Hollywood studios and HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ACTUAL CATHOLIC CHURCH... It was simply a group of devout Catholics rating movies, and most Catholics and other religious or non religious people that wanted decent, morally acceptable movies just followed the rating because that was what they wanted. Consequently, the studios wanted to produce movies with acceptable ratings so they could have increased viewership. You have to keep in mind that this was a business decision, and no one was told what kind of movies they could or could not see. Also remember that morality was much different back then since religion played a much more central role in every day life than it does today.
The legion of decency. Lol 😂😂
Parvati Nair "We shall save the world from morally wrong perceptions and ideas" lol
The church has absolute right to guide it's flock . The legion of decency was a million times correct
@@rebeccaanderson5626 A pity their guidelines were very wrong and downright malicious.
@@azazel166 They come from a religious community and are to be strict . Also speaking they were not created by the church they were created by members of the church .
There is a difference between them
Were they really wrong? Majority of the Hollywood actors specifically the actresses were subjected to horrid abuse. It isn't an accident that drug and alcohol abuse was rampant.
Sounds similar to what China is currently doing
Swishgod what is it doing?
Ok cmon, what China is doing is so much worse, this is honestly not even that bad... they created a code for movies that is now a very good organization
If this was meant to make the Catholic Church look bad, it failed - fantastically.
U guys totally missed the point. Point is that without it we would only have trash movies from that time and with it we have some of the finest movies ever
Roko Krstičević Finally. Preach!
They said that at the beginning and end
@ Rokoko uncensored version are always original and show the true intent of the director.
Ryan Barr he doesn't say that at the end. He says that regardless of the censorship we still have great works of art, but who's to say we wouldn't have better movies without the censorship?
0:07 holy cow it's the guy from the reaction gif
Magnificent work, thanks Church.
Well, nowadays every movie has an social justice agenda like the American Catholics had a conservative one. Needs a balance
Vox be out here throwing shade at people and their house slippers smh
Am I the only catholic over here?
"Legion of Decency." Hypocrites. And the last argument doesn't hold water. Just because there were good films made during this period doesn't mean that the films suppressed or not made were bad.
Before the Catholics got hold of things, there was this: "In 1922, after some risqué films and a series of off-screen scandals involving Hollywood stars, the studios enlisted Presbyterian elder William H. 'Will' Hays, a figure of unblemished rectitude, to rehabilitate Hollywood's image. Hays, later nicknamed the motion picture 'Czar,' was paid the then-lavish sum of $100,000 a year (equivalent to more than $1.4 million in 2015 dollars)." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Code_Hollywood
lets go back
Church and state separate, right guys, r...right?
We're in much better shape when those standards are enforced.
Not at all. 80s and 90s was a golden age for America and we didn't have those codes.
@@ManiacMayhem7256 The degeneracy had already started in the 60's
@@nathanielus5296
Resulting in amazing movies like Taxi Driver and numerous others? You just proved my point
Except now the ratings system is still broken...
The censor is based and redpilled.
Some of the best works ever made came post Hayes. The movies made during the code were creative and good in spite of the code, not because of it. I can give you a massive list of great movies that would never be made under the code. Chances are you enjoy media that wouldn't have been made under said code
@@ManiacMayhem7256 Cope harder, lolbertarian
@@nathanielus5296
Telling truth ain't cope, it's common sense. You can thank me for fixing your mistake
@@nathanielus5296
Dragon Ball Z pfp btw. That definitely wouldn't have made it under the code rofl
I hate theocracy and I’m decidedly not catholic. BUT I’m sick of “PG” movies being enough to make anyone with a sense of decency squirm. Truly many of them are making humans increasingly immoral and heartless.
Ando now compare films from that age with the absolute today garbage.
If anyone has seen the ending of the film Rebecca, the Production code seriously botched it. The logic that was in the original novel got really messed up.
Can they start doing this again?
Every one of these films would have been improved by greater artistic license allowed by their creators.
As opposed to today where jaws control everything you see and hear?
You think it was any different in the 30s and 40s in USA?
@cyrusthechad7256 true but in terms of Hollywood, The Hays Code and the Institutional Power of the Catholic Church and Christianity as a whole had over Western society at that time, absolutely.
THIS IS GREAT!!!! I hope you guys talk more about film and cinema history.
Hey, why i cannot comment last video about sleeping?
And see a like ratio ;)
I was in time to see it and it was something like 2k / 6k
Pablo Ortiz Lopez I know, i saw that :)
Vox, this was interesting, but, I think a follow-up/companion video might be well received. The Hayes Code is a huge factor in movie history as well.
"Even when they explore the darkest depths of the soul or the most unsettling aspects of evil, artists give voice in a way to the universal desire for redemption"~~Pope John Paul II
Thanks for sharing this! Very informative. Real treat for my brain.
Very based Catholics. Bring the Legion back
Based on soccer mom morality
No
That's very interesting. I'm surprised there was no '1st ammendment' argument back then.
I remember a documentary about Irelands very strict censorship (playboy banned until 1990!) and they gave an example with the movie Casablanca. Kissing was cut, and so was any reference to adultery. I'd say everyone left the cinema very confused after the ~50 minute movie...
Now, CC can't control censorship anymore. In this age of technology wherein everyone has smartphone, we can watch and read whatever we want. Look at the society now, so individualistic. We do not trust authority anymore. We always feel high about ourselves. All of us wants to be the boss. The result? We tend to do what it feels right, rather than what is right.
Hey is that wall organizer on the background from 4eyezfuriture?
The same is happenong in INDIA now, sadly ,people protest against Movies with "new ideas" .Ugh INTOLERANCE on high....
i am about to watch the movie with the muslim prince as lead. the one everyone in the Hindu community is up in arms about. the cinematography is gorge
Nobody censored Padmaavati, just that quite a few people wanted to laumch a massive boycott to get the film pulled, no official Hindu organization condemned it.
And in 2015 the movie Spotlight gets the Oscar.
They did well. Look at the world now without restrains.......yearning the past we are.
5:34 the exact opposite arguement can be made for the 100s of movies that weren't made because of the code.
Like yeah slippers
Remember..your supposed to be in a "FREE" country ...yeeeaaahhh. sure.
"Down with this sort of thing."
- Father Ted
Censorship of any kind limits creativity.
The internet is dominating nowadays.... It is the future.
Mr Insouciant ok what else is new
Fros-T13 the internet is more like a full grown 30-40 year old adult than an old man right now.
John Doherty I think that's referencing a character from the hit TV show "Malcolm in the middle"
The internet is dominating and it's the place where religion goes to die.
What?
Is there one religion that doesn't have history of trying to hold society back?
What happened with your last video? Lost your leftist support?
*OFFENSIVE RELIGIOUS COMMENT*
THEN DONT POST THE VIDEO IF YOU CANT FACE THE TRUTH. DONT DISABLE YOUR COMMENTS AND LIKES VOX. YOU ARE BETTER THAN THIS!!!