#hays code era

[ennaih]

Every Film I Watch In 2023:

278. Edge Of Doom (1950)

#edge of doom #edge of doom (1950) #2023filmgifs #my gifs #that was sooo much more nuanced and rageful than i expected #genuinely startled to hear such anti-church things expressed #in a Hays Code era film #but of course it was bookended by a lot of proper religiosity #and the voiceover was there to remind us #but i really loved how brutal and unsentimental the dialogue was #and how good all the performances were #i only wanted to hit Farley Granger a few times #he irritates me so much #but he was actually quite excellent here #and totally broke my heart when he said 'it seemed like no one cared' #of course i was there for Dana in a priest collar #and it was so fascinating to compare his performance #with Montgomery Clift in I Confess #in such similar stories #very different affect #Dana looks at everyone like he might consider snogging them #but the subtext with Farley Granger #definitely brought a strong queer energy to this #of course that might be my slash goggles lolz #also really loved the cinematography #i just love black and white film so much

[kaftan]

the worst crime of suspiria 2018 is they didn’t even have the evil lady witches try to pull some weird lesbian shit with their younger vulnerable lady dancers

#the fact that madame blanc in particular never made a move on susie (and susie never made a move on HER) makes me sooooooo mad. #there are hays code era films with more lesbianism in them. disappointing!

[wainwrightjakobshammerlock]

an indirect kiss/a good use of prosthetics (don't worry, they can smoke: they're fatherly, old timey and badass, that's already 3 reasons to let them do their thing. also those are expensive edenian cigars.)

#images technically approved by my mom LMAO #anyways these two + old timey hays code era tropes = the best shit ever fr #my post #borderlands #alistair hammerlock #wainwright jakobs #wainlock #postbl3 verse #smoking #ask to tag #artstuff

[sleepknoot]

Anyways, sometimes I see discourse about people needing media to be "good, clean, and wholesome" all the time. Unironically some of the media I consume would make some of you vomit.

#Last post I'm ignoring my inner monologue okay? #I feel like a lot of people forget that they probably can't change anybody's mind. Especially when you act as though you're morally superio #Ya'll can watch Hays Code era movies if you want but you're not going to stop me from watching what I wanna watch. #Anyways here's to critical thinking skills. #zombert.txt

[crabcrabcrabmeat]

"The Celluloid Closet" essentially ascribes the death of the Hays Code to general audiences getting sick of it and I think that's neat, that even average joes back in the day went to see crossdressing and (other) illegal things onscreen and they liked it!!! A lot!!!!

#then again if i had to live thru the transition from pre-code to hays code movies id strange the guy myself #wonderfully creative medium to nothing but cowboy nonsense all too keep women and minorities out of the industry #like obviously bigotry is worse than bad media but its funny that the two go hand in hand #u shot everyone in the foot! just so u have to pretend john waynes racist fucking ass can act #anyways happy hollywood is sooo unproblematic today 🙃 #also 'keep out' is a poor choice of words #tumblr is just bad w editing tags #early hollywood was easily its most diverse era--- it didnt become all white men by accident lol #abs blabs

[mothbait]

I’ve been seeing. So many “hating sto/litz is homophobic” tweets lately i’m going to kill.

#helluva critical #someone shared a tweet that said they expected this out of hays code era people. im going to bite you. #im sure people are homophobic about it but. the things they share and qrt is like. ship discourse. the fuck are you talking about #i am. considering elaborating on my feelings of this whole thing #i do think it would be funny if someone called me homophobic about this one though considering im bi but whatever

[screenviolense]

some people need a better media diet. not me though.

#still seeing ppl in the st fandom think gay people didn't exist before 2000 #which even if you didn't want to research real history (which you should obvi) #there is such a wide media landscape dating back at least a century #both nonfiction and fiction! #it may be outside what's the most mainstream but is worth seeking out to understand more about the history #such as pre-code films #or even hays code era films like rebel without a cause or bringing up baby or some like it hot #of course there are several more but those are the first i think of #✦ OOC #anyway. salt i guess.

[trueshredguitar]

thinking about some like it hot again and thinking about how the ending is two engaged men ride off into the sunset on a boat

#like this was released in peak hays code era i dont know how the fuck they got away with it

[beachboysnatural]

An annoying quirk of mine is getting all huffy when a movie from the 70s or newer is called old Hollywood because to me no it is not. 60s are on thin ice btw

#SORRY its just that the old hollywood era to me is classic hollywood and earlier #if an american movie came out after 1934 and the hays code had zero impact whatsoever it’s NOT old hollywood to me #YES this is petty and pedantic and nitpicky and I don’t care #persannal

[landlordevil]

I think few characters compare to joel cairo (either in the book or the movie). he is queer coded, he is constantly made out to be weak and effeminate and vain, then there is the description of him being Levantine in the book (hammett the author uses this word specifically and does not specify more than this iirc) and he makes various mentions to his darker skin and black hair, which I think many people discussing his queerness mistakenly overlook. These correlations between being the Other in terms of ethnicity, race, gender and sexuality were rampant in midcentury filmmaking and still used today but it's so clear with Cairo that it's just eye opening. Idk... I remember discussing it with my classmates in a film class I was taking at the time and so many of them didn't even register it as being a tool of propaganda because we see it so often in American and British films that it's just become shorthand for "villain we must overcome"

#i need a second character bingo of characters in hays era movies that i think about near constantly... #speaking from a very us centric place but its monumental to me. that so much of american filmmaking has been dictated by this ''code'' #and that we haven't shaken it off. it's still integral to our storytelling. idk!

[20th-century-man]

Jayne Mansfield / King Donovan’s Promises! Promises! (1963)

Released as the Hays Code (aka the Motion Picture Production Code) began to be applied erratically and before the MPAA film rating system was introduced in 1968, this film was the first mainstream Hollywood film of the sound era to feature nudity by one of its lead actors.

#Jayne Mansfield #Promises! Promises! #King Donovan #1963 #film #1960s #gif #my gif #20th-century-man gif

[renthony]

In Defense of Shitty Queer Art

Queer art has a long history of being censored and sidelined. In 1895, Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray was used as evidence in the author’s sodomy trials. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the American Hays Code prohibited depictions of queerness in film, defining it as “sex perversion.” In 2020, the book Steven Universe: End of an Era by Chris McDonnell confirmed that Rebecca Sugar’s insistence on including a sapphic wedding in the show is what triggered its cancellation by Cartoon Network. According to the American Library Association, of the top ten most challenged books in 2023, seven were targeted for their queer content. Across time, place, and medium, queer art has been ruthlessly targeted by censors and protesters, and at times it seems there might be no end in sight.

So why, then, are queer spaces so viciously critical of queer art?

Name any piece of moderately-well-known queer media, and you can find immense, vitriolic discourse surrounding it. Audiences debate whether queer media is good representation, bad representation, or whether it’s otherwise too problematic to engage with. Artists are picked apart under a microscope to make sure their morals are pure enough and their identities queer enough. Every minor fault—real or perceived—is compiled in discourse dossiers and spread around online. Lines are drawn, and callout posts are made against those who get too close to “problematic art.”

Modern examples abound, such as the TV show Steven Universe, the video game Dream Daddy, or the webcomic Boyfriends, but it’s far from a new phenomenon. In his book Hi Honey, I’m Homo!, queer pop culture analyst Matt Baume writes about an example from the 1970s, where the ABC sitcom titled Soap was protested by homophobes and queer audiences alike—before a single episode of the show ever aired. Audiences didn’t wait to actually watch the show before passing judgment and writing protest letters.

After so many years starved for positive representation, it’s understandable for queer audiences to crave depictions where we’re treated well. It’s exhausting to only ever see the same tired gay tropes and subtext, and queer audiences deserve more. Yet the way to more, better, varied representation is not to insist on perfection. The pursuit of perfection is poison in art, and it’s no different when that art happens to be queer.

When the pool of queer art is so limited, it feels horrible when a piece of queer art doesn’t live up to expectations. Even if the representation is technically good, it’s disappointing to get excited for a queer story only for that story to underwhelm and frustrate you.

But the world needs that disappointing art. It needs mediocre art. It even needs the bad art. The world needs to reach a point where queer artists can fearlessly make a mess, because if queer artists can only strive for perfection, the less art they can make. They may eventually produce a masterpiece, but a single masterpiece is still a drop in the bucket compared to the oceans of censorship. The only way to drown out bigotry and offensive stereotypes created by bigots is to allow queer artists the ability to experiment, learn through making mistakes, and represent their queer truth even if it clashes with someone else’s.

If queer artists aren’t allowed to make garbage, we can never make those masterpieces everyone craves. If queer artists are terrified at all times that their art will be targeted both by bigots and their own queer communities, queer art cannot thrive.

Let queer artists make shitty art. Let allies to queer people try their hand at representation, even if they miss the mark. Let queer art be messy, and let the artists screw up without fear of overblown retribution.

It’s the only way we’ll ever get more queer art.

_

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#original essays #original post #media studies #queer history #queer media #queer issues #fandom issues

[carnivore-voyeur]

Minors should not be going into adult spaces and then calling adults creeps for enjoying adult content made by and for adults. This is especially true for the Ghost fandom, and it's weird that we have to remind minors in this fandom that Ghost makes adult content for adults.

This was never an issue before the Impera era, but now I see so many judgmental videos about adult fans just existing and enjoying adult content within the Ghost fandom. I'm blaming TikTok and Stranger Things for the boom in minors coming into this space with this entitled mentality.

There's a simple solution to all of this. Stop going into adult spaces and then being surprised when there's adults there. They're not "cringe" for enjoying adult content. You are cringe for imposing a Hays Code level of censorship on adults within adult spaces.

#text post #the band ghost #rant post

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Miriam Hopkins (Design For Living, Trouble in Paradise)—miriam hopkins had great range as an actresses, truly a woman who could play a passionate outburst for either dramatic or comedic effect and sell the ever-loving hell out of it. she's wonderful in the witty and sophisticated comedies she made with ernst lubitsch, great examples of movies that could never have been made after the hays code; the frothy musical comedy the smiling lieutenant where she plays a naive princess who accidentally gets betrothed to maurice chevalier, the polyamory classic design for living where she gary cooper and hot vintage shadow king fredric march are a throuple, and the ineffably exquisite comedic masterpiece trouble in paradise in which she and hubert marshall are sexy jewel thieves trying to con sexy rich lady kay francis, but will emotional complications ensue???? watch to find out!!

Dorothy Dandridge (Carmen Jones, Porgy and Bess, Island in the Sun)— The first Black actress to ever be nominated for best actress, Dorothy Dandridge was a groundbreaking actress who deserved better. She started her career as a singer, being put in a song-and-dance duo with her sister by their stage mother, and singing in soundies (I highly recommend cow cow boogie, it's adorable), proto-music videos. She started appearing as a featured singer in films. Her star was on the rise and she soon became a star solo performer. She continued acting, but had limited options because she refused to do stereotypical roles. She finally landed a starring role in Bright Road in 1953, but it was the movie Carmen Jones that truly cemented her as a star and sex symbol. Not to sound cheesy, but she literally sizzles on screen. You can't help but understand how poor Harry Belafonte gets caught in her trap, just look at her. This is the role that got her that Oscar nom. She didn't win cause I mean #OscarsSoWhite, but she was a sensation and continued starring in films, despite troubles in her life (including a shitty director bf who fucked with her career and a traumatizing pregnancy/delivery). Outside of her filmwork, she was also an activist, fighting against racism. She left behind an amazing legacy, and continues to inspire many actresses to this day (including also very hot first (and only) black woman to win best actress, Halle Berry).

This is round 3 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Miriam Hopkins:

64.media.tumblr.com

She is an incredibly charismatic and versatile actress who brings a certain captivating je ne sais quois to each and every one of her roles that makes her impossible to ignore. Her pre-code films were considered quite risqué, with her part in a thrupple in Design For Living, and some saucy scenes they had to cut from Jekyll and Hyde. She also had a strong career in early television, so good that this queen literally has TWO Hollywood Stars, TWO!! One for TV and one for Film

Also she is Gorgeous, capable of being the girl nextdoor and also a stunning blonde bombshell. She's not as well known as some golden-age Hollywood stars but she's really incredible and I recommend everyone watch her films

In Trouble in Paradise she plays a pickpocket who flirts by stealing from her criminal boyfriend and I fell in love

Linked gifset

She's got this sly slouchy confidence that just draws you in. Almost no one wore 30s fashion as well as her

queen of the pre-code era. often her roles were of carefree, flirty and lighthearted but intelligent women. famously in the movie where she was part of a fredrich march/gary cooper throuple.

We all know that Design for Living is THE pre-code movie and she is so iconic in it. Her eyes are everythingggg. Also everyone look at her in a suit in She Loves Me Not please

A Frequent collaborator of Ernst Lubistch, Miriam Hopkins like up the screen in her comic roles, as is especially sexy in her pre-code performance in Design for Living; probably one of the first movies to showcase a coded polyamorous relationship. She toes the line between adorable and sexy, and had the acting chops to back it all up.

Dorothy Dandridge propaganda:

Beautiful actress and hand-working and talented singer, she's especially notable for the number of firsts she accomplished such as the first African-American woman to receive a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and the first African-American woman to appear on the cover of Life magazine.

Dorothy Dandridge was a classic Hollywood triple threat, singing, dancing, and acting with the best of them. She was the first African American nominated for an academy award for Best Actress for her role in Carmen Jones and she was just jaw-droppingly beautiful.

this og of black film needs no introduction (star on the hollywood walk of fame anyone?), voice of an angel, heavenly features, just an overall stunning lady :)

Look at her!!! She is so unbelievably charismatic in Carmen, it’s insane. Her chemistry with Harry Belafonte is off the charts, and every time she puts another outdoor [sic] on it’s like ‘oh god this is a whole new level of stunning’ 🥵. She was so so talented, when she’s on screen I genuinely dare you to tear your eyes away from her. Deserves to be known so much better but due to Hollywood racism and a tough personal life she didn’t make it as big as she should have done. She’s incredible.

First Black actress to be nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress! Was the first choice for the role of Cleopatra that went to Elizabeth Taylor (we were ROBBED).

#dorothy dandridge #miriam hopkins #fuck that old woman #ladies 3 #hotvintagepoll #Youtube

[yuri-alexseygaybitch]

Very much looking forward to the post-communist cultural studies about this particular period of "obviously extremely political but tries as hard as possible to be 'apolitical' to try and maximize profits" media produced under capitalism. Hays Code era-levels of cognitive dissonance.

[cressida-jayoungr]

One Dress a Day Challenge

February: Coeli's Monochrome Picks

I'm No Angel / Mae West as Tira

Coeli's comment: "Wowza!"

The pre-code era strikes again, with Travis Banton as the designer. The slinky, low-cut gown with spiderweb wrap in the bottom photo looks positively demure next to the costume she's almost wearing in the other photos. In Tira's defense, she is a circus sideshow performer. However, it's not too hard to see why this movie was cited as one of the factors leading to the implementation of the Hays Code.

Classic lines:

"Oh, Beulah, peel me a grape!"

"Well, it's not the men in your life that counts, it's the life in your men."

"When I'm good I'm very good. But when I'm bad I'm better."

#I'm no angel #coeli's picks #mae west #one dress a day challenge #one dress a week challenge #movie costumes #1933 movies #1933 films #1930s fashion #1930s style #30s fashion #30s style #travis banton #pre code #pre-code era #pre code era #pre code hollywood #black and whilte films #black and white movies #old hollywood