Arts

Warning: This article contains bad lan-
guage as well as nudity and sexual con-
tent that may offend some

TORONTO (CUP)—“Hump the
hostess”—with these three words, the
American movie-going experience
was forever altered.

It is the year 1966, a time of cultur-
al and moral change in the United
States. The Beatles are turning on
their minds and floating downstream,
American teenagers are growing their
hair long and “giving it” to the man,
university campuses are marred with
student protests, cities are rioting and
there are over 200,000 US troops in
Vietnam.

It is in this volatile climate that Jack
Valenti is hired as the new president
of the Motion Picture Association of
America (MPAA); in his first few
months on the job he is faced with
two challenges that ultimately play
catalyst to a change that alters the
course of Hollywood.

At the time of Valenti’s appoint-
ment, the outdated Hays Production
Code is still in effect. The creation of
the Code dates back to the beginning
of the century when, as movies
became more popular, people began
to become concerned about their
content.

In 1907, Chicago was the first city
to create a regulatory board to censor
films deemed inappropriate. Many
cities soon followed suit.
Preferring to regulate itself, in 1922
Hollywood created the Motion
Picture Producers and Distributors
Association (MPPDA)—the forerun-
ner of the MPAA—with the help of
Will Hays.

To begin with, the association cre-

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& Entertainment

 

ated a list of what could and couldn't
be shown in a movie, in order to
avoid having its films censored by
individual towns. However, with the
advent of talking movies, the old sim-
plistic system needed to be replaced
with something more far-reaching.
In 1930, the MPPDA created new
voluntary rules about what content
was acceptable in a movie, known as
the “Hays Production Code.” The
code included regulations such as,
“Correct standards of life, subject
only to the requirements of drama
and entertainment, shall be present-
ed” and “Law, natural or human, shall
not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy
be created for its violation.” Also, if
“adultery or illicit sex” took place, the
act could not be “presented attractive-
ly.”

Previous to the Hays Code, for
example, famous director Cecil B.
DeMille’s films featured full nudity
and pre-marital sex. However, when
his film The Sign of the Cross was re-
released after the Hays Code came
into effect, such scenes were cut.

Throughout the next 30 years or
so, the code remained in effect.
Certain films tested its limits howev-
er. A good example is Billy Wilder's
1955 comedy, The Seven Year Itch,
which contains the infamous scene
where the breeze from a passing sub-
way causes Marilyn Monroe’s dress to
fly up.

Getting back to 1966, society at
large was changing and values were
vastly different from where they had
been in the 30s; not only was the
Hays Code seen as outdated, it was
no longer really working. Sex and vio-
lence, previously kept to under-
ground films, were becoming part of

mainstream Hollywood and there was
nothing anyone could do to stop the
shift.

Soon after Valenti took office, he
was faced with whether to release
Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf. The
film contained objectionable sexual
dialogue that had never been used in
a movie before. The MPAA decided
to leave the phrase “hump the host-
ess” in the movie, but remove the
word “screw.”

Only a few months later, Valenti
and the MPAA again faced the same
problem with Italian director
Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up.
With the film, MGM was attempting
to become the first major Hollywood
distributor to promote a movie con-
taining nudity. The MPAA refused to
give Blow-Up the Hays Code seal of
approval, but MGM did not relent.
It decided to instead distribute the
film through one of its subsidiaries,
thereby going around the Hays Code
and violating the voluntary agree-
ment that all members had signed
onto that said they would not distrib-
ute anything without the MPAA’s
seal.

In April 1968, the Code was fur-
ther eroded by a landmark Supreme
Court decision that ruled cities had
the right to protect children from
material deemed. inappropriate at the
local level—this meant that with the
films increasingly pushing the limits
of what was previously socially
acceptable, the MPAA had to figure
out a new way to market them to the
public without causing an uproar.

It was at this point that Valenti real-
ized something had to give. And it
was the Hays Code.

“T knew that the mix of new social

May 2004

currents, the irresistible force of cre-
ators determined to make ‘their’ films
and the possible intrusion of govern-
ment into the movie arena demanded
my immediate action,” says Valenti,
on the MPAA website, about the sit-
uation.

Soon after, a new agreement was
developed with the National
Association of Theatre Owners
(NATO) and the governing commit-
tee of the International Film
Importers & Distributors of America
(IFIDA), who represented independ-
ent producers and distributors. The
movie rating system was born.

On November 1, 1968 the new
voluntary system was announced by
the MPAA. It consisted of: “G” for
general audiences, “M” for mature
audiences (replaced more recently by
PG and PG-13), “R” for restricted
audiences, and “X” for no one under
17 admitted.

The new system allowed the movie
industry the freedom to refrain from
self-censorship because it was now the
responsibility of parents to decide
what was or wasn't appropriate for
their children to watch.

However, the system was not per-
fect. With the exception of a few X-
rated films such as Midnight Cowboy,
which won the Academy Award for
best picture in 1968, and 1971's
Oscar-nominated A Clockwork
Orange (ironically both films’ ratings
were dropped to R several years later),
the X-rating became associated with
the porn industry, who adopted X as
their own.

This meant that to a mainstream
film, an X-rating spelled box-office
disaster. Furthermore, Blockbuster
(the United States’ largest chain of