Hays Code
The Motion Picture Production Code, commonly known as the Hays Code, was a set of industry moral censorship guidelines that governed American filmmaking from 1934 to 1968, when it was replaced by the MPAA film rating system.
Background
- The Hays Code (Motion Picture Production Code, 1930–1968) was a set of moral guidelines that Hollywood movies voluntarily followed to avoid government censorship. It banned depictions of "immoral" content like nudity, profanity, prolonged kissing, drug use, and "sexual perversion" (including any reference to homosexuality). Villains could not be sympathetic, and crime could not pay off on screen.
- It was named after Will H. Hays, a Presbyterian elder and former U.S. Postmaster General hired by the film industry to clean up its image after a series of Hollywood scandals in the 1920s.
- Enforcement was handled by the Production Code Administration (PCA), led by Joseph Breen, who had to approve every script and finished film. Studios that released films without PCA approval faced a $25,000 fine.
- The Code collapsed in the mid-1960s as foreign films, changing social norms, and legal pressure (including the 1952 Miracle Decision, which extended First Amendment protections to film) made it unenforceable. It was replaced in 1968 by the G/PG/R/X rating system (now G/PG/PG-13/R/NC-17), which still exists in modified form today.