alternatehistory.com

The Hays Code was a reaction against moral outrage by traditionalists against the motion picture industry. The American film industry was not explicit by today's standards, but it did feature such things as innuendo, moral ambiguity, progressive roles for women and non-whites, sexual maturity such as non married couples, premarital sex, abortion and open relationships, and other issues, and even occasional swearing. The Hays Code removed all that, and lead to an immature American cinema for decades, which waned in later decades until about the 1960s. For roughly the next thirty years, American film had to have clear good and evil where anyone bad had to lose, only traditional male and female roles could be portrayed (meaning docile, homemaking women), no sexuality was permitted, only traditional marriage could be portrayed, and innuendo and sex was totally taboo. There is a view that the Hays Office was dumb, and this only forced writers to get better at subverting it, which is not true. There is not a silver lining.

The Hays Code was essentially a one-size-fits all censorship in regards to film, where by today's standards, every film had to be for a General Audience. What if instead of the Hays Code, they had instituted a ratings system from day one? This is what replaced the Hays Code in later years, allowing for variable film maturity intended for different audiences.
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