The Hays Code Made Censorship the Status Quo for American Writers

When I first got my cell phone, I used to lose it all the time. It seemed like every time I left the house there was this mad scramble to find my phone. Eventually I’d discover it in some weird place like the top shelf in the bathroom, or next to the cereal in the pantry.I solved the problem by adopting the same tactic I used to stop losing my keys. With my keys, I conditioned myself to hang them on a hook near the door. It required concentration for a few weeks. Whenever I’d notice I had my keys in my pocket, I forced myself to go and hang them up on the hook. “That’s where they’re supposed to be,” I’d say. This worked because I didn’t like having to rouse myself to go and hang up my keys.Now, I put my keys on the hook without thinking about it. The same is true of my cell phone, it goes on the charging station in the living room. I haven’t lost my keys or my phone in years.We often talk about rote memorization, but there are other forms of learning. You don’t have to look very far to see examples of the power of conditioning. Watch an electrician work sometime. The key to their efficiency is that whenever they get done with a tool, they put it back in its place on their belt. They don’t put the tool on the floor, or on a shelf, or anywhere they will lose time by having to look for it. They’ve conditioned themselves to put the tool back in their belt, and it’s there when they need it.Writers use conditioning to become more efficient at their craft as well. We learn the marketplace and we condition ourselves to adopt the practices that lead to sales. The practices of established writers become known as the industry standard that’s passed down in writing courses.But what happens to the literature of our society when established practice is influenced by government censorship? Conditioning is a very difficult thing to unlearn, and there are still traces of the conditioning that originated in the restrictive Hays code that can be seen in American writing.Sponsor me for $5 a month ❤️ Sponsor me for $4 a month 🧡 Sponsor me for $3 a month 💛 Sponsor me for $2 a month 💚 Thank you! 💙Film wasn’t always considered a form of speechEvery time a new technology is unleashed upon society, there are concerns. The most recent example is the angst over AI writing. It was no different with the invention of film. Obviously, film has the power to evoke and influence our emotions. Films can lead to behavior that even represents a danger to society.I remember back in 2001 when The Fast and the Furious first hit theaters, police would set up speed traps nearby because they knew kids couldn’t resist tearing out of the parking lot.In the early days of film, there were many concerns. These concerns even made it all the way to the Supreme Court. The 1915 decision of Mutual Film Corp. V. Industrial Commission of Ohio determined that film would not be protected by the First Amendment. This can only be called a colossally bad decision.The ruling wasn’t overturned until 1952 in Burstyn V. Wilson. But overturning a bad decision doesn’t erase all the damage. The fact is that starting in 1915, the government was able to wield an excessive amount of censorship influence on the ability of the American population to discuss and engage certain ideas and concepts.During that time, a standard was set. It’s easy to look back on enduring works and assume they must persist because they contain some fundamental truth. However, when a mechanism of censorship is present, the only works of literature that are allowed to endure are the ones that conform to their era’s standard of approved propaganda.What is the Hays Code?The Hays Code or the Motion Picture Production Code first became an industry standard starting in 1927. The Hays Code is often referred to as “voluntary censorship” but that’s misleading.What happened is that, propelled by the 1915 Supreme Court decision, various states began creating censorship boards such as New York in 1921. These boards existed in some form prior to the “Mutual Film” Supreme Court decision, but they had access to more power after that ruling. When the Supreme Court makes an ill-advised ruling, it can take a few years for the true depths of the new reality to become apparent.The last thing the motion picture industry wanted was 48 different censorship codes (Alaska and Hawaii were added as states in 1959). Studio executives foresaw how conflicting standards could create problems when it came to releasing films in different states.In response, Will H. Hays came up with a standardized list referred to as the “Don’ts and Be Carefuls.” This list would be approved by the Federal Trade Commission as the accepted standard that would prevent censorship. This list became the basic outline which was adjusted throughout the next few decades.It’s interesting to note that the list which would define American film for decades wasn’t a framework for quality storytelling. The Hays Code is a list of intellectual concepts that are discouraged and prohibited. It’s a list of topics Americans were not allowed to contemplate in the medium of film for decades.What are the consequences of censorship?As a writer, I trend towards being an iconoclast. There’s something about the phrase, “We’ve always done it that way” that makes me grind my teeth. It bothers me to think that the whole literary community of the United States might have been conditioned to steadfastly disregard certain topics on the basis of a poorly-conceived censorship code.It kind of makes my skin crawl to read the items on the Hays Code because I recognize I have a deeply rooted aversion to many of them. I find myself wondering if that aversion is natural, or if it’s the result of undue government control.Now, some of the items on the list are common sense (such as the prohibitions against the exploitation of children). However, the code contains various examples of language that’s so vague it threatens to infringe upon important discussions which are necessary for a healthy society.“Better safe than sorry,” says the writer, or the studio, or the director, or the actor. Then they choose the safe path and our whole social dialogue trends towards absolute junk.If we restrict film as a means to discuss important and controversial issues, how are we expected to make progress in our understanding of those issues? In some ways, the enduring legacy of the Hays Code is that we’re disinclined to even broach certain topics. That baseline of restricted thought is detrimental to our objective of social advancement.Sponsor me for $5 a month ❤️ Sponsor me for $4 a month 🧡 Sponsor me for $3 a month 💛 Sponsor me for $2 a month 💚 Thank you! 💙It’s a bizarre listI’ve read enough listicles over the years that I’ve developed a strong skepticism over the inherent weaknesses of the format. There’s too little room for debate and too much of a demand for compliance. The Hays Code reveals the flawed morality of its era with prohibitions such as this:“6. Miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and [B]lack races)” — Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, “The Don’ts and Be Carefuls” (1927).Loving V. Virginia, the Supreme Court case that made interracial marriage legal, wasn’t decided until 1967. To what extent did the Hays Code contribute to the delay in this long overdue decision?The famous interracial kiss on Star Trek between Uhura and Kirk was first aired in 1968 and was particularly controversial in the American South. The Hays Code played a significant role in the delay in depiction and the hostile response to what an advanced society should perceive as a non-issue.It irritates me that, in many ways, we still don’t live in that “advanced society.”Writers have an obligation to break through social conditioningI started off this article with the example of conditioning yourself so you don’t lose your keys or your phone. That’s a practical action to employ. However, all you have to do is look around our society and you see examples of how people have been conditioned to adopt various forms of stubborn intolerance which create a social deficit everyone must pay.What makes things worse are the instances where we’ve been robbed of the mechanism to explore and dismantle these toxic beliefs.The thing that I find the most disturbing is that many writers have never even heard of the Hays Code. If you’re ignorant of this history, you might land on the assumption that classic films have consistent “moral” themes because those are the fundamental ideas which speak to the human soul and are most likely to endure the passage of time.Classic films don’t represent that at all. In fact, they represent government overreach, censorship, and social engineering.False assumptions can render your work irrelevantIt’s dangerous to study the decades of films created under the restrictive Hays Code without an awareness of the proper historical context. There’s enough material contained in those films to effectively condition generations of writers into thinking the themes and perspectives contained therein are the only “appropriate” way human beings should interpret the world.Consider this the next time you stop yourself from writing a scene because something in the back of your mind issues a warning that the contents might be considered “unacceptable.” Is that a true thought, or is that a malicious left-over from an all-too-recent era of censorship?Making progress towards an advanced society requires a deliberate effort to separate the influence of malicious conditioning from our understanding of truth. The Hays Code contributed to the corruption of decades of creative work. Today, writers have an obligation to pay particular attention to the themes which whole generations of creative minds were conditioned to disregard.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! 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