Censorship In Hollywood Cinema

Discuss the role of censorship in the construction of classic Hollywood Cinema.

Censorship is something we all do to ourselves. Understanding why and how we choose to self regulate our sensory experiences is crucial in understanding representations in classic Hollywood cinema and how it functioned on an economic and psychoanalytical level. Self-regulating began long before the enforcement of the MPPC (Motion Picture Production Code) in 1934 when the Catholic Legion of Decency threatened to boycott cinema. For well over a century, individuals found that by refusing or rejecting certain images or text from social contexts they could benefit others or themselves. If Foucault's thesis is to be believed, that repression is a conscious and political

In the 1930s in particular, there was no other figure, male or female, whose very name evoked the concept of sexual desire and gratification. It's curious that West, an "iconographic representation of the wilful, unrestrained female sexuality,"(Halperin.2011) rose to popularity not during the roaring 1920s, the era of women's suffrage (in 1920) and the modern woman, but in the 1930s. Although West used a good deal of physical humour, her strength was her fast-talking, quick-witted stand-up comedy routine, developed on the 1920s vaudeville stage. Prior to the "talkies," her style of humour wouldn't have worked in the movies. West claimed that she made a career off of censorship. She was widely known for sexual innuendo, particularly her invitation to men to, "Come up and see me sometime." She developed this comedic style in order to circumvent censorship of dramatically presented sexual material in her vaudeville acts and plays. many documents and archives from the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) show evidence that Mae West was never really completely uncensored. Before she was forced to follow PCA’s regulations, West’s work was always submitted to the MPPDA office’s scrutiny. This censorship process was very complex. Every stage of the production was supervised but, against general supposition, the process was not aiming to suppress the sexual content Moreover, many historians agree that

Some maintain that Mae West is solely to blame for censorship; her loud career and the changes in the PCA do coincide time-wise. But it is a well-known fact that the scrutinizing of movies that supposed a threat to morality was something that had been happening well before West appeared on the big screen. At the same time, West’s rising popularity made her an easy target for critics and reform groups. But, as Caren Feldman puts it, “she was more than symbolic; her controversial screen presence became a major impetus that accelerated a process already set into motion”(Feldman,