FS 444H - Film Censorship

Prerequisites, FTV 140 and FS 244 or FS 245. Film studies and film and media studies majors and film studies and film and media studies minors will have enrollment priority. This course investigates the cultural, industrial, and social factors that provided the genesis of Hollywood self-industry censorship during what has been coined its “Pre-Code” era. Beginning in the 1920s, students will study the formation of the Motion Picture Producers and Directors Association (MPPDA),through the Studio Relations Committee’s monitoring of early sound films in the early 1930s, until the strict enforcement of the film industry’s “Production Code” in 1934, and then analyze its effects/aftermath. Consequently, self-imposed censorship significantly influenced American cinema, contributing to a film narrative, the individual style and persona of auteur directors and major film stars, and audiences’ viewing practices. This course screens films with illicit themes from particularly problematic genres that caused controversy with civic and religious groups (mainly the Catholic Legion of Decency) and analyzes primary source documentation highlighting these disputed subjects. Students then trace how film censorship was a form self-industry regulation that shaped the depiction of gender, sexuality, and race in classic Hollywood cinema that in turn significantly shaped American cultural and social attitudes in twentieth century film representation. [DEI] Letter grade. (Offered as needed.) 3 credits