Film Vocabulary: The Hays Production Code

The Hays Production Code (1930-1967)

The Hays Code was a set of industry guidelines governing the production of American motion pictures. The Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA, later to become the Motion Picture Association of America or MPAA) adopted the code in 1930, began effectively enforcing it in 1934, and abandoned it in 1967 in favor of the subsequent MPAA film rating system. The Production Code spelled out what was and was not considered morally acceptable in the production of motion pictures for a public audience.

Public outcry over perceived immorality, both in Hollywood and in the movies, led to the creation in 1922 of the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association (which became the Motion Picture Association of America in 1945). Intended to project a positive image of the movie industry, the association was headed by Will H. Hays (pictured here on a 1926 Time Magazine), who had previously been United States Postmaster General and the 1920 campaign manager for President Warren G. Harding. Hays pledged to establish a set of moral standards for the movies.

The Production Code enumerated three "General Principles":

1. No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.
   
2. Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.
   
3. Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.

Specific restrictions were spelled out as "Particular Applications" of these principles:

• Nudity and suggestive dances were prohibited.
  
• The ridicule of religion was forbidden, and ministers of religion were not to be represented as comic characters or villains.
  
• The depiction of illegal drug use was forbidden, as well as the use of liquor, "when not required by the plot or for proper characterization".
  
• Methods of crime (e.g. safe-cracking, arson, smuggling) were not to be explicitly presented.
  
• References to "sex perversion" (such as homosexuality) and venereal disease were forbidden, as were depictions of childbirth.
  
• The language section banned various words and phrases that were considered to be offensive.
  
• Murder scenes had to be filmed in a way that would discourage imitations in real life, and brutal killings could not be shown in detail. "Revenge in modern times" was not to be justified.
  
• The sanctity of marriage and the home had to be upheld. "Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing." Adultery and illicit sex, although recognized as sometimes necessary to the plot, could not be explicit or justified and were not supposed to be presented as an attractive option.
  
• Portrayals of miscegenation were forbidden.
  
• "Scenes of Passion" were not to be introduced when not essential to the plot. "Excessive and lustful kissing" was to be avoided, along with any other treatment that might "stimulate the lower and baser element."
  
• The flag of the United States was to be treated respectfully, as were the people and history of other nations.
  
• "Vulgarity," defined as "low, disgusting, unpleasant, though not necessarily evil, subjects" must be treated within the "subject to the dictates of good taste". Capital punishment, "third-degree methods", cruelty to children and animals, prostitution and surgical operations were to be handled with similar sensitivity.

By 1968, enforcement had become impossible, and the Production Code was abandoned entirely. The MPAA began working on a rating system, under which there would be virtually no restriction on what could be in a film. The MPAA film rating system went into effect on November 1, 1968 with four ratings: G, M, R, and X. In 1969 the Swedish film I Am Curious (Yellow) directed by Vilgot Sjöman, was initially banned in the US for its frank depiction of sexuality; however this was overturned by the Supreme Court. The M rating was changed to GP in 1970 and to the current PG in 1972. In 1984, in response to public complaints regarding the severity of horror elements in PG-rated titles such as Gremlins and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the PG-13 rating was created as a middle tier between PG and R. In 1990 the X rating was replaced by NC-17, in part because the X rating was not trademarked by the MPAA and pornographic bookstores and theatres had used the X and XXX rating. [Source]