Censorship In Fahrenheit 451

Censorship While Americans are guaranteed free speech and free press in the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, a history of censorship has nevertheless existed in this country. Censorship was at times allowed and even enforced by the United States government. In the early years of film making, censorship was allowed on the grounds that movies were entertainment and not an expression of free speech. Senator Joseph McCarthy's hearings into the political background of artists led to the "blackballing" of several prominent Hollywood writers during the 1950s. While the Supreme Court decision allowing censorship of films was overturned in 1952, strict regulation of film content persisted into the 1960s. Today, the attempt to censor artistic products

Censorship was at times allowed and even

Ray Bradbury says that one of the main inspirations for Fahrenheit 451 came when he was out walking with a writer friend, and "a police car pulled up and the policeman got out and asked us 'What are you doing?'" Bradbury explained that they were out walking ("putting one foot in front of the other" was his first "smartaleck" response.) The policeman didn't like it. "Don't do it again!" he told Bradbury – which sent the writer into such a rage that he went home and wrote the short story The Pedestrian [PDF], imagining a time in which everyone who walked was considered a criminal. Later, he took his "midnight criminal stroller" for another walk around the future city – and Fahrenheit 451 was born.enforced by the United States government. In the early years of film making, censorship was allowed on the grounds that

Today, the attempt to censor artistic products comes mainly from organized pressure groups. Ironically, Bradbury's publishers, unknown to him, bowdlerized Fahrenheit 451 —that is, "cleaned up" or deleted some of the language that Bradbury used—in order to make the book saleable to the high school market. Since the advent of films, television, and the internet, efforts to limit access by children to certain types of material in these media has persisted to this day. The general method has been to have producers of these media rate the programs and place the burden of responsibility on parents to censor what children see in the movies, watch on television, or have access to on computers.While Americans are guaranteed free speech and free press in the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, a history of censorship has nevertheless existed in this country. Censorship was at times allowed and even enforced by the United States government. In the early years of film making, censorship was allowed on the grounds that movies were entertainment and not an expression of free speech. Senator Joseph McCarthy's hearings into the political background of artists led to the