Essay On Screwball Comedy

This paper will cover censorship in film with its main focus in the United States. It will cover the progress of film censorship and how it has varied throughout the country as well as state to state. The reader will discover how film censorship has changed with society and can be a resemblance of society at a certain point in time. Important cases and lawsuits will be covered as well, enabling the reader to understand why and how certain laws were created and questioned.

For example, we see the used of illegal substances, violence and explicit scenes but at the end the characters using them or the ones indulged in such activates are brought under the law and are punished accordingly. We see that certain behaviors are punished within the story of the film. The films followed the Code and gave its audience a perspective of what happens to the people who go against the law or breaks the law in other words. Which brings up the question of how different would have the films been which followed the Code by the book, meaning which had to abide by the Hays Code in order to be released in the theatres. It was surprising to see how the code prohibited political critique of government policies, restricted use of language and listed people not to be hired who did not follow the Code. It surely dictated to an extent on how a film should be presented to its audiences, resulting in taking away a lot of the freedom of the film itself and all this was justified by the fact that it was providing a guideline for the films in order to uphold social moral

The 1960s were a volatile time and an important season of change in American history. The revolutions in social mores that the country experienced extended to the cinema. Previously, films sought the endorsement of production associations and religious organizations. That trend began to be challenged by bold directors and their films that earned success without the approval of these establishments. With its brash dialogue and suggestive situations, Mike Nichols’ screen adaptation of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? caused controversy by continuing the radical movements of films in the 50’s and 60’s, leading to content changes as well the advisory of who should see it. Along with other films that came before it, this led to the creation of the MPAA ratings system to classify films based on content.

Thomas Cripps, author of Making Movies Black: The Hollywood Message Movie from World War II to the Civil Rights era, claims that trendy entertainments in addition to films facilitated conversion in our viewpoints concerning race within America. The mass media system that was designed for belittling the African race was correcting the social problems it generated. Cripps examines various movies beginning with post-war cinema and leading into the Civil Rights era. This book presents

If art is not suitable or government perceive it as negative for itself and society, “government agency attempts to prohibit speech or writing, the party being censored frequently raises these First Amendment rights” (Censorship). In History of U.S it has been many examples of censorship, but one well-known as “the first major instance of institutionalized censorship in US” (Social Attitudes) is “Hays Code,” officially known as the “Motion Picture Production Code of 1930” (Social attitudes). The Supreme Court had governed that movies are not enfold in free speech provision of the First Amendment; thus, the government articulated what was suitable for films. It seems shocking now, but more outrageous is the fact that this low was strictly enforced from 1935 to 1968. Expressing ideas and feelings through art, in this case through film, is a genuine and subjective reflection on social, political and family issues. Artists in their passion to show the world those unique and authentic feelings, trough variable artworks, usually follows their instincts. A Governmental attempts to censorship truthful feelings and persuasions that are affiliate trough different artworks which are not suitable for political and social current ideology, is a proof of elementary First Amendment rights

Profanity and vulgarity are abundant in modern films and pop culture, which only promotes its usage and encourages this immoral behavior. As Pillai writes in an article, a pro of censorship is that “It restrains vulgarity and obscenity” (Pillai). Through censorship, society can be saved of the negative impact of such language.

An issue that has remained prevalent throughout most of history is that of filtering and censorship. Perhaps one of the more controversial topics discussed within this course, filtering and censorship directly relates to my future career goal of being a filmmaker. While I’m undeclared at the moment, the idea of making films in the future has always been of interest to me. Filtering and censorship often holds an important role within the cinema as it sets the standard for what can and cannot be shown on screen. This paper is intended to describe the negative effects that filtering and censorship has on the film industry and those that work within it. The sources in this paper will range from four different books about censorship in film.

Homosexuality on screen has been a taboo topic since the creation of film in the late nineteenth century and remained that way until violent protest of the 1970’s sexual revolution. Continually, the overuse of hateful slurs against the gay community is still used today as comedic relief. The overall delayment in representation of homosexuals in the industry paused the long march for equal rights and resulted in inaccurate stereotypes such as the “pansy” or villains. The conservative reaction towards such liberal topics caused filmmakers to conceal “queer cinema” as production codes enforced strict laws, but as time progressed so did the involvement of the LGBT community in the film industry,

Firstly, public uproar over the the release of J.W. Griffiths’s film The Birth of a Nation prompted discussion of racial issues, and increased membership of civil rights organizations whilst resulting in nationwide calls for state level censorship legislation. Demands for censorship of motion picture content had been minimal until the 1915 release of The Birth of a Nation (Rosenbloom 309). The film, which sympathized with

Censorship, the control of the information and ideas circulated within a society, has been a characteristic of dictatorships throughout history. In the 20th Century, censorship was achieved through the examination of books, plays, films, television and radio programs, news reports, and other forms of communication for the purpose of altering or suppressing ideas found to be objectionable or offensive. There have been assorted justifications for censorship, with some censors targeting material deemed to be indecent or obscene. Because of this, ideas have been suppressed under the disguise of protecting three basic social institutions: the family, the church, and the state. In Ray Bradbury’s book, Farenheit 451,

Frequently in the movie several men in the audience laughed and jeered at the missing love scenes in the movies they were watching, knowing exactly what was missing from the film.

Restriction of expression in the film industry is in the form of censorship, which in the UK was set up in 1912 as the British Board of Film Censorship (BBFC) by the film industry as a self-regulatory body charging the film industry for the service. The local councils in the UK usually accepted these classifications. This is a view of the censorship laws and in particular the era of the ‘video nasty’ and how it slipped through the film censorship net.

British film censorship might have listened to the statement of Tsar and started to place their scissors on the film on the first day of 1913 and proclaimed that “ no film subject will be passed that is not clean and wholesome, and absolutely above suspicion (Kuhn, 1988, p.22). Randall (1968) figured out the root of censorship derived from “ the offensive and threatening depiction”.

It is a bit ironic yet perfectly timed that the media is releasing all of these scandalous stories about the men and women in Hollywood having these hidden sexual harassment situations that have been buried for years, that are coming out right as we are discussing the reading, “Oppression” by Marilyn Frye. In the reading, Frye points out that the actual definition of “oppression” is completely stretched. She makes it known that the word is often misused and can have much more that goes along with it than most can understand. Frye identifies the word “oppression” with certain barriers that a person must face that both people on the “inside” and the “outside” do not realize need to be there in order to properly evaluate the situation as a whole. We can correlate the word “press”

Individuals who oppose the use of censorship often argue that the liability for the information that children acquire lands in the hands of the media, but as a parent, they are responsible for supervising their children's media and literary use and access. Additionally, other controversies arise, such that adults become subject to the same blocking of materials, even ones protected by the Constitution, as minors and that “imposition of censorware would effectively force everyone to adhere to someone else’s morality” (Electronic Frontier Foundation 29). Many consider this a immense infliction on their individual rights even if it protects others from harmful materials. Nevertheless, the courts repeatedly ruled in favor of censorship to ensure the safety and security of the nation. Even if materials remain uncensored, access to them must be stringent and not openly available for anyone, young or mature, to stumble upon at any given moment. Many of today’s generation grew up surrounded by movies, articles, music, and advertisements centered around sex. Yes, children must learn about the subject at some point, but parents need to educate their children about the proper time and purpose for sex, not the media or literature of their daily lives. Again, if the people of the United States feel uncomfortable exploring the web, watching a movie, listening to the radio, or even opening a magazine, then the government needs to seriously reflection on its purpose and duties as the