Kasper Kouloumian
TA: Leah Steuer
Film 6a, Winter 2017
8 March 2017
The Shift to the Ratings System and American Cinema
In 1930, due to public outcry and fears of federal involvement, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) introduced the Production Code, also known as the Hays Code, which censored or put limitations on film content. In 1934, it began to get strictly enforced. Although it was preferred over federal involvement, it soon became a gigantic burden. However, efforts were made to combat the Code. Geoffrey Shurlock, who was head of the MPAA since the mid-1940s, endorsed having more adult content in films to lure audiences. In 1951, the first part of an Italian film, titled “The Miracle,” directed by Roberto Rosselini, was
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Paul (played by Marlon Brando) showed everything that Stanley Kowalski (also played by Brando) in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) had been forced to suppress (Leff and Simmons 279). United Artists gave it an "X" rating, the same rating that Academy Award-winning Midnight Cowboy (1969) first earned. The Los Angeles Times' Charles Champlin wrote, "If Deep Throat is a cost of the new freedom, Last Tango is a reward, an examination in recognizable individual terms of some of the most guarded but universal fears, fantasies, desires and pains in human nature." Even though Deep Throat (1972) was too much for movie theaters and everyday Americans to handle, movies such as Last Tango in Paris allowed previously unexplored universal human fears and emotions to be expressed and received by audiences through the medium of film. Last Tango in Paris was so influential that Brando and director Bernardo Bertolucci were both nominated for Oscars (Leff and Simmons 279). It is worth mentioning that Deep Throat, a high-value production American pornographic film, was one of the first pornographic films to include movie elements, such as a plot and character development. However, since films rated “X” could not be advertised, they were informally banned and eventually