Joseph Breen ends up becoming a priest, instead of ending up involved as first a reporter, then in time Hollywood's chief censor. What's different during the code era without his involvement? Also what's different afterwards once it gets ended either formally or being "amended" enough times to be basically nonexistent? Assume for the purposes of the thread that his replacement is also a conservative, Irish-American catholic. But this alternate censor, one Kevin O'Bannon doesn't have Breen's charisma, stubbornness or awareness of the potential power of film. Basically, O'Bannon is a diligent worker but not able or willing to go above and beyond like Breen with logical consequences like more edge cases or barely hidden/wink wink nudge stuff being able to sneak by.
For second-order questions: What impacts happen with later censorship plans/moral panics like say comics or videogames? Even though the reasoning for the later two panics is completely different(secular psychological arguments for the first, vague "protect the children" for the second), a somewhat weaker Hays code might have impacts on how willing people are to sign up for a censorship crusade. OTOH I could be wrong and to use tvtropes language New Media Is Evil could lead to OTL type panics/Comics Code/ESRB happening anyways. Given the shifts in acceptable content compared to OTL in movies/TV this ATL's versions of both would likely have both looser standards and more flexibility in adapting to changing levels of openness than OTL's Comics Code/ESRB with butterflies on content. Then again a Hollywood which has more resistance and people getting stuff by might indirectly lead to arguments against censoring being taken more seriously even if it's simply "They'll find a way around it so it doesn't work" as opposed to "artistic freedom!"" type arguments.
My guess:
It's clear the trendline would resemble OTL in many ways: strictest enforcement during depression/war years then dropped sometime between the late 50s to late 60s, to be replaced with some sort of ratings system but details would differ. For starters, the content of early TV would be a bit more open. Nowhere near as open as a "no hays code" ATL, but only say 90% leave it to beaver instead of OTL's 100%. After the ending of the Production Code you likely see a period of rather rapid liberalization in film and to a lesser extent TV content in terms of sexuality/vulgarity/violence to even more edgy than OTL but likely some sort of backlash/cleanup in the 90s to present due to part boomer/xer executives wanting to protect their kids due to their more ah, leave it to beaver youths. However, this ATL's somewhat more loose production code means these people aren't quite as shelterd so the self-censorship/enforcement of PG-13 ratings is at least not as strict as OTL. For the baseline scenario, comics in the 1950s and videogames in the 1990s would end up with ATL versions of the Comics Code/ESRB, even if not as ridiculously censored as OTL. Perhaps comics in the 50s see a few other smaller genres surviving as clearly secondary things in the long run besides superheroes until independent comics start popping up in the 80s. Videogames? See above in terms of similar trendlines to OTL with the key differences being in 1) US/Western games being willing to go for attreactive girls over realism because sex sells for cynical profit reasons instead of OTL's mid-2010s onwards move away from it 2) Less, if not no complaints about Japanese games' content. TV? Again it's yet more of the "OTL but more liberalization and less backlash" stuff above. Perhaps butterflies leads to a weaker animation age ghetto, at minimum it means Animie gets big in the US in the 80s and not 90s(DC, Marvel and Disney all dying off could be butterflies from this...).
Politics probably reorganizes on much the same lines as OTL. After all, the Code even if somewhat lighter than OTL still means boomers get to still grow up with leave it to beaver on the TV/whatever was in the theaters to set their image of what the world is like in an idealistic way. 1960-1980 is probably as stormy as OTL with no reason to change. 1980-present due to the slightly more realistic depiction of the world in TV/movies likely means there's slightly less panic over the fact various 1960-80 social changes are sticking, so somewhat less loud culture wars, with a side effect of a significantly weaker purity culture with implications for what issues are pushed in discourse.
for reference:
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
For second-order questions: What impacts happen with later censorship plans/moral panics like say comics or videogames? Even though the reasoning for the later two panics is completely different(secular psychological arguments for the first, vague "protect the children" for the second), a somewhat weaker Hays code might have impacts on how willing people are to sign up for a censorship crusade. OTOH I could be wrong and to use tvtropes language New Media Is Evil could lead to OTL type panics/Comics Code/ESRB happening anyways. Given the shifts in acceptable content compared to OTL in movies/TV this ATL's versions of both would likely have both looser standards and more flexibility in adapting to changing levels of openness than OTL's Comics Code/ESRB with butterflies on content. Then again a Hollywood which has more resistance and people getting stuff by might indirectly lead to arguments against censoring being taken more seriously even if it's simply "They'll find a way around it so it doesn't work" as opposed to "artistic freedom!"" type arguments.
My guess:
It's clear the trendline would resemble OTL in many ways: strictest enforcement during depression/war years then dropped sometime between the late 50s to late 60s, to be replaced with some sort of ratings system but details would differ. For starters, the content of early TV would be a bit more open. Nowhere near as open as a "no hays code" ATL, but only say 90% leave it to beaver instead of OTL's 100%. After the ending of the Production Code you likely see a period of rather rapid liberalization in film and to a lesser extent TV content in terms of sexuality/vulgarity/violence to even more edgy than OTL but likely some sort of backlash/cleanup in the 90s to present due to part boomer/xer executives wanting to protect their kids due to their more ah, leave it to beaver youths. However, this ATL's somewhat more loose production code means these people aren't quite as shelterd so the self-censorship/enforcement of PG-13 ratings is at least not as strict as OTL. For the baseline scenario, comics in the 1950s and videogames in the 1990s would end up with ATL versions of the Comics Code/ESRB, even if not as ridiculously censored as OTL. Perhaps comics in the 50s see a few other smaller genres surviving as clearly secondary things in the long run besides superheroes until independent comics start popping up in the 80s. Videogames? See above in terms of similar trendlines to OTL with the key differences being in 1) US/Western games being willing to go for attreactive girls over realism because sex sells for cynical profit reasons instead of OTL's mid-2010s onwards move away from it 2) Less, if not no complaints about Japanese games' content. TV? Again it's yet more of the "OTL but more liberalization and less backlash" stuff above. Perhaps butterflies leads to a weaker animation age ghetto, at minimum it means Animie gets big in the US in the 80s and not 90s(DC, Marvel and Disney all dying off could be butterflies from this...).
Politics probably reorganizes on much the same lines as OTL. After all, the Code even if somewhat lighter than OTL still means boomers get to still grow up with leave it to beaver on the TV/whatever was in the theaters to set their image of what the world is like in an idealistic way. 1960-1980 is probably as stormy as OTL with no reason to change. 1980-present due to the slightly more realistic depiction of the world in TV/movies likely means there's slightly less panic over the fact various 1960-80 social changes are sticking, so somewhat less loud culture wars, with a side effect of a significantly weaker purity culture with implications for what issues are pushed in discourse.
for reference:
Joseph Breen - Wikipedia
