The second section of the Code tackles the issue of sexual content within a film, a dilemma which has been faced by every developing genre from screwball comedy to action/adventure.

However, our present culture is much more cynical than the conservative generation of the thirties, forties, and fifties.  As children of the Information Age, fed on a steady diet of special effects and reality television, a Hollywood that chose not to include depictions of drug dealing and gunshot wounds would seem incomplete and unbelievable.

Hays desired that no illegal activities should ever be “presented in such a way as to throw sympathy with the crime as against law and justice,”  and effectively spelled out the guidelines that make that possible.  He also specified that no crimes should be detailed, hoping to dissuade the young and foolish from attempting to do anything they saw in the movies.

It only remains to juxtapose the effects of cinema in the Code era with the impact it made in the pre- and post-Code periods up to this point.

The first section of the Code deals with the subject of “Crimes Against the Law,”  which was vitally important to address in the face of cop-and-robber movies and the like.

3.    Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.
Within these parameters, the Code went on to be more specific to movie situations, leaving little room for ambiguity on what would “lower…moral standards.”
The dynamics of the Production Code in relation to the idea of free artistic expression can be viewed in numerous different ways.  Does the Production Code unnecessarily limit the creative powers of the artisans involved in the process, or does it bring a sense of safety and trust to the relationship between filmmaker and viewer?

The Code states “general principles” at the outset, which include:
1.    No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it.  Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.

No such rules had been necessary previous, because the public had only recently begun to grapple with the concept of moving pictures.  Now, in the face of inner and outer conflict, the film gurus determined that boundaries needed establishment.

The so-called “Roaring Twenties” brought the film industry into a state of uproar.  Barely beyond its infant stages, the new, experimental medium threatened to collapse in the face of scandal.

Gossip columns went wild upon discovering that actress Mary Pickford, recently christened “America’s Sweetheart,” had divorced her husband and married the younger Douglas Fairbanks within a matter of weeks.  Fatty Arbuckle, the classic silent slapstick comedian, was falsely accused of raping and murdering young starlet Virginia Rappe.

Although Arbuckle was later acquitted, the damage was done—the trust between the filmmakers and the audience had been severely breached.

You push hard to get noticed.

You invest all of your time, effort, and resources into making it the best that you think it can or ever will be.

Then you step back and let other people judge it, giving them the power to accept it or reject it at will.

You let them determine for themselves (and often, for you) whether it has any intrinsic value.

Then you either accept your prize or walk off with the pieces of what you thought was art.

Here, in college, I’m hoping my life is worth the investment.