Hays Code

But right before this, he had done The Seven Year Itch, and he hates that movie.

Well, he's not alive, but he hated that movie a lot because he felt like the Hays Code had kind of pulled him into this corner that he couldn't write his way out of because he couldn't have Marilyn Monroe hook up with a guy.

And that's obviously the core of that movie is like, The guy was like having an affair.

So it was like, you can't, but there is no affair.

I mean, you said Hollywood Codes.

The Hays Code? Yes, the Hays Code.

And, you know, if this were any other week, I would have researched Hays Code and all that jazz again.

All you need to know is just it's a very strict code.

Yeah, a lot of things couldn't do.

You know what? I'm remembering now.

Thank you, Brain.

We did talk one time about how the Hays Code had a rule about men and women couldn't be on film in the same bed.

You know, she's not dangerous to society, but she is... a thrill and Mae West is a hugely talented funny woman who as you say is much too old typically by Hollywood standards to be starting out her career there's also this sort of famous story where the Hollywood studio don't quite realize what it is they've just done they sort of sign her and then panic and go oh my word have you do you know who we've just signed you know they're kind of terrified they don't realize they haven't really seen her plays they just think that she's popular So West is really interesting.

And obviously the Hays Code comes in and to a certain extent neutralizes that kind of comedy.

The Hays Code is this sort of censorship of film culture that gets rid of mention of adultery and sex and very much sort of reestablishes quite traditional Edwardian morals almost.

And so West sort of dodges it for as long as she can.

And then she has this sort of second or even third wind where she becomes very beloved by the gay community.

I love it.

No, I do feel like Gen Z, and maybe this is just me typecasting, but I have noticed a lot of, like, weird conservatism and how they talk about pop culture and media and, like, all the Hays Code stuff of, like, we don't want sex scenes.

We don't, you know, it's all of this, like... boomerang sort of back to I don't know the 50s or something and I feel like there I don't know if this is Gen Z specific or if it's just like the new wave of feminism that I'm seeing now but there's almost this like repackaged gender essentialism of like everything a man does is inherently evil because a man did it and then everything a woman does is inherently feminist because a woman did it and that's just like it's something that sounds progressive but it's actually very very conservative and I feel like I saw a lot of that In the Scandival discourse, I'm seeing a lot of it in all of these co-ed shows, the discourse around them.

And I don't know if that's a Gen Z thing.

Raymond delivered a 51-page outline in May of 1944.

The Hays Office reviewed Raymond's outline and demanded that some terminology, such as characters referring to Remus as an old D-A-R-K-I-E, be removed from Raymond's treatment.

Ugh.

Uh, and when, what year is this again?

And I just really like these old-fashioned horror movies.

I'm a big fan of... movies from like the early 30s even into the 20s in the silent era but horror movies from like the 30s up through say the late late 60s early 70s you know and I and and things do by the 60s they do start to get a little more intense some of the earlier horror movies before the Hays Code could even be a little bit intense but I I just kind of like the old-fashioned approach the sort of the slower approach to horror the You know, the building up of it, the sort of dealing with, you know, a lot of it is often just dealing with characters and dialogue for, you know, quite lengthy periods of time.

So you have to be very invested in the plot.

It can't just be about the monster.

Uh-huh.

But I kind of wanted to tack towards what were the most f- if I'm doing forbidden cocktails, what's the most verboten, right? And, uh, William Wellman, uh, you know, is really, uh, credited a lot with, you know, having the Hays Code come down because, um, he does Public Enemy, which was really violent for its time.

Um, you know, now it doesn't seem that crazy, although it has a real violent, visceral violence to it that-

Yeah