Motion Picture Code
The economic downturns of the Great Depression contributed to the county's fascinationwith gangster genres. As Americans lost their jobs or saw their farms foreclosed on bythe once admired establishment or banking system; with public endorsement gangstersdescended in spirit from America's frontier outlaws such as the James Gang, and led bydesperadoes like Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, and Machine Gun Kelly--rose upto assault the system. Because of Prohibition, the Great Depression and World War II,gangsters became the modern gunslingers and outlaws. The gangster saga replaced theWestern as the American myth. It told the story of modern America. Young Americans enjoyed watching gangster films during the 1930s. BeforePresident Roosevelt's New Deal, gangsters were without doubt the American cinema'smost striking heroes. The film industry's love affair with members of criminal gangs wasonly natural, they were colorful, violent, and charismatic men and women whoselaw-breaking activities were followed by millions of law abiding Americans. But whenbrought to the screen, gangster films more than any other Hollywood genre createdproblems not only for the usual censorship lobbies but also for judges,
Written in 1930 by two mid-western Catholics, a Jesuit professorof drama in St. The Payne Fund Studies took four years tocomplete and was published from 1933 thru 1934. But the Payne Fund's research was distorted to support the kind ofstatements about the effects of movies on young audiences that moral reformers had beenmaking for years (Jarvis 135). "The Payne Fund Reports: A Discussion of their Content, Public Reaction, and Affect on the Motion Picture Industry, 1930-1940. For example,G-Men used the resources of a popular film form and one of it's star names to advocatethe arming of the FBI because "federal power depends ultimately on firepower"(McCarty 97). Short and his Motion Picture Research Council to commission a seriesof studies financed from the Payne Study and Experiment Fund, an organization based inCleveland and headed by Professor W. In New York, state censors slashed over 2,200 crime scenes during1930-32 (Springhall 141). Criminal acts were "never to be presented in such a way as to throw sympathywith the crime as against law and justice or to inspire others with a desire for imitation. Catholics were asked to sign a pledge in regard to gangster films, swearing to "do all thatI can to arouse public opinion against the portrayal of vice as a normal condition ofaffairs and against depicting criminals of any class as heroes and heroines, presentingtheir filthy philosophy of life as something acceptable to decent men and women"(Springhall 144). Charters, who was the director of educationalresearch at the Ohio State University. Rising concern about the harmful effects ofcinema on youthful American minds had in 1928 led anti-Hollywood campaigner theRev. Another volume concluded that the influence ofmovies on children was strong but was "specific for a given child and a given movie" (Jarvis 132). Evidently, the 1930 Production Code was not beingenforced and was not legally enforceable.
Common topics in this essay:
Hays Code,
Roosevelt's Deal,
Decency Legion,
Payne Fund's,
Warner Brothers,
Nonetheless Hollywood,
Los Angeles,
Shame Nation,
Payne Studies,
,
gangster films,
motion picture,
gangster movies,
hays code,
warner brothers,
legion decency,
federal government,
love affair,
love affair mob,
hays office,
harmful effects,
journal popular culture,
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Acceptance Essays
