Hays Code - Tumblr Posts

Will always be frustrated at how many people said "there shouldn't be fiction about the pandemic! Movies made during the Depression didn't acknowledge the Depression, after all!" even though

They very much did

The lack of political films...was the Hays Code? Pre-Code films were political, and that, too, was barred by the Code. It wasn't a choice or accident, it was suppression.

Notably, the Hays Code cancelled several attempted anti-Nazi films in the 1930s, under provisions against "insulting" another country (read: getting American films banned from the German market). They didn't allow an explicit one until 1939 and they only allowed that one bc it was based on a real FBI case. Maybe we should acknowledge that was going on instead of deciding that was voluntary and good and should be mimicked actually

Twitter (2020) VS the Hays code (1930)