The history of any artistic field involves many hardships and wins. The film industry has undergone major transformations since its establishment, notably censorship. While film studios were once regulated by the government, which implied creating motion pictures that would suit the ideas of the nation’s leaders, self-censorship was an informed choice of film creators. The films that were created a century ago were then subject to rigorous examination and codes that specified what was acceptable to show and what was banned. In this sense, the lack of freedom of expression and constant control of the film creations is what differs the 20th-century film studios from contemporary movie creators.
As indicated in the book written by Langford, the studio structure at its pinnacle may be viewed in one rather unconventional perspective as a perfectly calibrated regulating mechanism. Hollywood was relatively minimally regulated towards the end of the Second World War in this definition of the word, which normally refers to government-mandated limits on corporate operations (Langford, 2010). Still, while the motion picture in this period was a kind of amusement, it was not First Amendment-secured and was subject to varying degrees of censorship (Lev, 2010). A number of widely defined internal and external types of control played a crucial part in maintaining the complex and effective processes of the studio system that impeded the full expression of one’s creative potential for many creators.
The desire to escape external control, which was a very real possibility at this time, encouraged self-regulation. Since 1934, the tight enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code has forbidden explicit sexual content, violence, and even the use of terms like “hell,” “damn,” “S.O.B.,” and “broad” (when referred to women), and “louse” (Lev, 2010, p.56). The Production Code Administration implemented the intensively conservative ethical code established in the Code to the narration, conversation, asserted and inferred behaviors, and visual effects of every shot at every step from the purchase of assets through to post-production, but especially during the scriptwriting phase (Langford, 2010). In this sense, self-censorship implied full compliance with social norms and ethics, and the existing code dictated what was acceptable.
However, the Code’s antiquated views on sexuality and social interactions may have been offensive to some in the Hollywood artistic community. They were antiquated even by the norms of the 1930s, let alone the significantly altered American society arising from World War II (Langford, 2010). Regardless of this, the Code managed to succeed for more than a decade in ensuring the smooth distribution of movies to audiences with little chance of intervention from the government or local governments.
As for my perspective on American film history and its modern condition, I believe that the contemporary movie industry tends to be more open and inclusive in terms of sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, gender, age, and language. The history of motion pictures indicates the ossified and conservative preferences of society. In my opinion, a lot of genuine emotions and true depictions of events and the lives of people were blurred by sugarcoated and creative screenwriting. While it can be understandable since many studious aimed to mitigate the involvement of the government, such pictures lacked inclusion and authenticity at some points. Nowadays, film studios target acute issues that are present in society and avoid censorship, seeking freedom of expression and communicating their ideas to a worldwide audience.
References
Langford, B. (2010). Post-classical Hollywood: Film industry, style and ideology since 1945. Edinburgh University Press.
Lev, P. (2013). Twentieth Century-Fox : The Zanuck-Skouras years, 1935-1965. University of Texas Press.