A tale of censorship and regulation at the heart of the modern film industry
In 1972, The Godfather and Deep Throat were the two most popular films in the country. One, a major Hollywood studio production, the other an independently made "skin flick." At that moment, Jon Lewis asserts, the fate of the American film industry hung in the balance.
Spanning the 20th century, Hollywood v. Hard Core weaves a gripping tale of censorship and regulation. Since the industry's infancy, film producers and distributors have publicly regarded ratings codes as a necessary evil. Hollywood regulates itself, we have been told, to prevent the government from doing it for them. But Lewis argues that the studios self-regulate because they are convinced it is good for business, and that censorship codes and regulations are a crucial part of what binds the various competing agencies in the film business together.
Yet between 1968 and 1973 Hollywood films were faltering at the box office, and the major studios were in deep trouble. Hollywood's principal competition came from a body of independently produced and distributed films—from foreign art house film Last Tango in Paris to hard-core pornography like Behind the Green Door—that were at once disreputable and, for a moment at least, irresistible, even chic. In response, Hollywood imposed the industry-wide MPAA film rating system (the origins of the G, PG, and R designations we have today) that pushed sexually explicit films outside the mainstream, and a series of Supreme Court decisions all but outlawed the theatrical exhibition of hard core pornographic films. Together, these events allowed Hollywood to consolidate its iron grip over what films got made and where they were shown, thus saving it from financial ruin.
Jon Lewis is Professor of English at Oregon State University where he has taught film and cultural studies since 1983. His books include Whom God Wishes to Destroy . . . Francis Coppola and the New Hollywood, The Road to Romance and Ruin: Teen Films and Youth Culture, and (as editor) The New American Cinema.
Table of Contents
1 How the Blacklist Saved Hollywood
2 Collusion and Conglomeration in the Movie Business
3 What Everyone Should Know about the Motion Picture Code and Ratings
4 Hollywood v. Soft Core
5 Hollywood v. Hard Core
6 Movies and the First Amendment
7 A Quick Look at Censorship in the New Hollywood
What People are Saying About This
Linda Williams
Jon Lewis weaves a compelling narrative of how box office
needs-rather than moral strictures-have dictated the history of film
regulation. Telling the complex and fascinating story of how Hollywood
abandoned the Production Code and developed the ratings system and
then telling the even more compelling story of how the X rating became
a desirable marketing device when hard core pornography became
popular, Hollywood v. Hard Core reveals a great deal about the true
business of censorship. —Linda Williams, author of Hard Core: Power,
Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible"
Thomas Doherty
As provocative as his sometimes X-rated subject matter, film scholar
Lewis detects an intimate relationship between the seemingly strange
bedfellows of mainstream Hollywood cinema and hardcore pornography.
From postal inspector Anthony Comstock to virtue maven William
Bennett, from the Hays Office that monitored the golden age of
Hollywood to the alphabet ratings system that labels the motion
pictures in today's multiplex malls, Lewis's wry, informative, and
always insightful study of American film censorship demonstrates that
the most effective media surveillance happens before you see the
movie. Hollywood v. Hard Core is highly recommended for audiences of
all ages. —Thomas Doherty, author of Pre-Code Hollywood
