Entertainment For Lively Minds
Ten things we weren't supposed to see
Posted by Gauntlet on 7 February 2010 - 10:55am.
This is a picture apparently created by the Head of Photography at Columbia to show all ten items banned by the Hays Code. It looks like a still from a pretty interesting film...
(via Sociological Images)
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Indeed
glad to see she's preserving decency by having one foot on the floor (as far as I can tell) ;-)
I'd like to see the movie
But I'm a rebel and I'll never never be any good
And ironically enough
any film made these days with all those elements would be described as 20s or 30s retro!
Bad Bat
The creators of Batman: The Animated Series created a similar illustration of elements they were under no circumstances to include in a cartoon show for kids
referenced in this blog:
http://therainer.blogspot.com/2008/03/forbidden-animation-thematically-o...
now
that's my kind of gal
Changed priorities
These days, the picture would instead show someone in a car...
a) without a seatbelt
b) using a mobile phone while driving
c) smoking
d) wearing a crucifix or other religious symbol
e) listening to illegally downloaded music
f) buying fast food for their children
Violence? Meh.
New Puritanism
I'm not sure things are so puritanical. I bought a Curious George book for my daughter a few weeks ago which describes him having a "good pipe" before going to sleep. The illustration contains graphic images of nicotine consumption. If anything was to be re-written/censored, then a kids book would be first on the list, surely.
New Hypocrisy
I'm glad Curious George has kept his pipe. I haven't seen any newly-printed Tintin books recently, but I hope Captain Haddock still enjoys a pipe, too - even if the racial stereotypes and animal cruelty of a book like "Tintin in the Congo" have been exorcised.
I think publishing tends to be less puritanical than television, and children's fiction has always had a strange filtering system. But it's when overactive education authorities start getting heavy-handed when choosing books for their schools and libraries that the cleansing really begins.
I think I'm right in saying that a TV drama can show someone shooting someone else in the face, but they must wear a seatbelt in the getaway car. Or is that a myth?
I know that they had to
I know that they had to re-animate episodes of the kids show, Peppa Pig, because the originals hadn't shown the characters wearing seatbelts.
The only Tintin book I have read recently was the Scottish one, I forget the name. That still has its cruel, cruel, Scottish stereotypes.
I'm trying to think of what you just wouldn't show now.
The only thing I can think of which might have studio bosses soiling their Calvins would be an image of the prophet Mohammed. There's not much else which would now turn a hair.