A Code to Govern the Making of Talking, Synchronized and Silent Motion
Pictures.
Formulated and formally adopted by The Association of Motion Picture
Producers, Inc. and The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of
America, Inc. in March 1930.
Motion picture producers recognize the high trust and confidence which
have been placed in them by the people of the world and which have
made motion pictures a universal form of entertainment.
They recognize their responsibility to the public because of this
trust and because entertainment and art are important influences in
the life of a nation.
Hence, though regarding motion pictures primarily as entertainment
without any explicit purpose of teaching or propaganda, they know that
the motion picture within its own field of entertainment may be
directly responsible for spiritual or moral progress, for higher types
of social life, and for much correct thinking.
During the rapid transition from silent to talking pictures they have
realized the necessity and the opportunity of subscribing to a Code to
govern the production of talking pictures and of re-acknowledging this
responsibility.
On their part, they ask from the public and from public leaders a
sympathetic understanding of their purposes and problems and a spirit
of cooperation that will allow them the freedom and opportunity
necessary to bring the motion picture to a still higher level of
wholesome entertainment for all the people.
General Principles
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.
2. Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of
drama and entertainment, shall be presented.
3. Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy
be created for its violation.
Particular Applications
I. Crimes Against the Law
These shall never be presented in such a way as to throw sympathy with
the crime as against law and justice or to inspire others with a
desire for imitation.
1. Murder
a. The technique of murder must be presented in a way that will not
inspire imitation.
b. Brutal killings are not to be presented in detail.
c. Revenge in modern times shall not be justified.
2. Methods of Crime should not be explicitly presented.
a. Theft, robbery, safe-cracking, and dynamiting of trains, mines,
buildings, etc., should not be detailed in method.
b. Arson must subject to the same safeguards.
c. The use of firearms should be restricted to the essentials.
d. Methods of smuggling should not be presented.
3. Illegal drug traffic must never be presented.
4. The use of liquor in American life, when not required by the plot
or for proper characterization, will not be shown.
II. Sex
The sanctity of the institution of marriage and the home shall be
upheld. Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationship
are the accepted or common thing.
1. Adultery, sometimes necessary plot material, must not be explicitly
treated, or justified, or presented attractively.
2. Scenes of Passion
a. They should not be introduced when not essential to the plot.
b. Excessive and lustful kissing, lustful embraces, suggestive
postures and gestures, are not to be shown.
c. In general passion should so be treated that these scenes do not
stimulate the lower and baser element.
3. Seduction or Rape
a. They should never be more than suggested, and only when essential
for the plot, and even then never shown by explicit method.
b. They are never the proper subject for comedy.
4. Sex perversion or any inference to it is forbidden.
5. White slavery shall not be treated.
6. Miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and black races)
is forbidden.
7. Sex hygiene and venereal diseases are not subjects for motion
pictures.
8. Scenes of actual child birth, in fact or in silhouette, are never
to be presented.
9. Children's sex organs are never to be exposed.
III. Vulgarity
The treatment of low, disgusting, unpleasant, though not necessarily
evil, subjects should always be subject to the dictates of good taste
and a regard for the sensibilities of the audience.
IV. Obscenity
Obscenity in word, gesture, reference, song, joke, or by suggestion
(even when likely to be understood only by part of the audience) is
forbidden.
V. Profanity
Pointed profanity (this includes the words, God, Lord, Jesus, Christ -
unless used reverently - Hell, S.O.B., damn, Gawd), or every other
profane or vulgar expression however used, is forbidden.
VI. Costume
1. Complete nudity is never permitted. This includes nudity in fact or
in silhouette, or any lecherous or licentious notice thereof by other
characters in the picture.
2. Undressing scenes should be avoided, and never used save where
essential to the plot.
3. Indecent or undue exposure is forbidden.
4. Dancing or costumes intended to permit undue exposure or indecent
movements in the dance are forbidden.
VII. Dances
1. Dances suggesting or representing sexual actions or indecent
passions are forbidden.
2. Dances which emphasize indecent movements are to be regarded as
obscene.
VIII. Religion
1. No film or episode may throw ridicule on any religious faith.
2. Ministers of religion in their character as ministers of religion
should not be used as comic characters or as villains.
3. Ceremonies of any definite religion should be carefully and
respectfully handled.
IX. Locations
The treatment of bedrooms must be governed by good taste and delicacy.
X. National Feelings
1. The use of the Flag shall be consistently respectful.
2. The history, institutions, prominent people and citizenry of other
nations shall be represented fairly.
XI. Titles
Salacious, indecent, or obscene titles shall not be used.
XII. Repellent Subjects
The following subjects must be treated within the careful limits of
good taste:
1. Actual hangings or electrocutions as legal punishments for crime.
2. Third degree methods.
3. Brutality and possible gruesomeness.
4. Branding of people or animals.
5. Apparent cruelty to children or animals.
6. The sale of women, or a woman selling her virtue.
7. Surgical operations.
Reasons Supporting the Preamble of the Code
I. Theatrical motion pictures, that is, pictures intended for the
theatre as distinct from pictures intended for churches, schools,
lecture halls, educational movements, social reform movements, etc.,
are primarily to be regarded as ENTERTAINMENT.
Mankind has always recognized the importance of entertainment and its
value in rebuilding the bodies and souls of human beings.
But it has always recognized that entertainment can be a character
either HELPFUL or HARMFUL to the human race, and in consequence has
clearly distinguished between:
a. Entertainment which tends to improve the race, or at least to
re-create and rebuild human beings exhausted with the realities of life;
and
b. Entertainment which tends to degrade human beings, or to lower
their standards of life and living.
Hence the MORAL IMPORTANCE of entertainment is something which has
been universally recognized. It enters intimately into the lives of
men and women and affects them closely; it occupies their minds and
affections during leisure hours; and ultimately touches the whole of
their lives. A man may be judged by his standard of entertainment as
easily as by the standard of his work.
So correct entertainment raises the whole standard of a nation.
Wrong entertainment lowers the whole living conditions and moral
ideals of a race.
Note, for example, the healthy reactions to healthful sports, like
baseball, golf; the unhealthy reactions to sports like cockfighting,
bullfighting, bear baiting, etc.
Note, too, the effect on ancient nations of gladiatorial combats, the
obscene plays of Roman times, etc.
II. Motion pictures are very important as ART.
Though a new art, possibly a combination art, it has the same object
as the other arts, the presentation of human thought, emotion, and
experience, in terms of an appeal to the soul through the senses.
Here, as in entertainment,
Art enters intimately into the lives of human beings.
Art can be morally good, lifting men to higher levels. This has been
done through good music, great painting, authentic fiction, poetry,
drama.
Art can be morally evil it its effects. This is the case clearly
enough with unclean art, indecent books, suggestive drama. The effect
on the lives of men and women are obvious.
Note: It has often been argued that art itself is unmoral, neither
good nor bad. This is true of the THING which is music, painting,
poetry, etc. But the THING is the PRODUCT of some person's mind, and
the intention of that mind was either good or bad morally when it
produced the thing. Besides, the thing has its EFFECT upon those who
come into contact with it. In both these ways, that is, as a product
of a mind and as the cause of definite effects, it has a deep moral
significance and unmistakable moral quality.
Hence: The motion pictures, which are the most popular of modern arts
for the masses, have their moral quality from the intention of the
minds which produce them and from their effects on the moral lives and
reactions of their audiences. This gives them a most important
morality.
1. They reproduce the morality of the men who use the pictures as a
medium for the expression of their ideas and ideals.
2. They affect the moral standards of those who, through the screen,
take in these ideas and ideals.
In the case of motion pictures, the effect may be particularly
emphasized because no art has so quick and so widespread an appeal to
the masses. It has become in an incredibly short period the art of the
multitudes.
III. The motion picture, because of its importance as entertainment
and because of the trust placed in it by the peoples of the world, has
special MORAL OBLIGATIONS:
A. Most arts appeal to the mature. This art appeals at once to every
class, mature, immature, developed, undeveloped, law abiding,
criminal. Music has its grades for different classes; so has
literature and drama. This art of the motion picture, combining as it
does the two fundamental appeals of looking at a picture and listening
to a story, at once reaches every class of society.
B. By reason of the mobility of film and the ease of picture
distribution, and because the possibility of duplicating positives in
large quantities, this art reaches places unpenetrated by other forms
of art.
C. Because of these two facts, it is difficult to produce films
intended for only certain classes of people. The exhibitors' theatres
are built for the masses, for the cultivated and the rude, the mature
and the immature, the self-respecting and the criminal. Films, unlike
books and music, can with difficulty be confined to certain selected
groups.
D. The latitude given to film material cannot, in consequence, be as
wide as the latitude given to book material. In addition:
a. A book describes; a film vividly presents. One presents on a cold
page; the other by apparently living people.
b. A book reaches the mind through words merely; a film reaches the
eyes and ears through the reproduction of actual events.
c. The reaction of a reader to a book depends largely on the keenness
of the reader's imagination; the reaction to a film depends on the
vividness of presentation.
Hence many things which might be described or suggested in a book
could not possibly be presented in a film.
E. This is also true when comparing the film with the newspaper.
a. Newspapers present by description, films by actual presentation.
b. Newspapers are after the fact and present things as having taken
place; the film gives the events in the process of enactment and with
apparent reality of life.
F. Everything possible in a play is not possible in a film:
a. Because of the larger audience of the film, and its consequential
mixed character. Psychologically, the larger the audience, the lower
the moral mass resistance to suggestion.
b. Because through light, enlargement of character, presentation,
scenic emphasis, etc., the screen story is brought closer to the
audience than the play.
c. The enthusiasm for and interest in the film actors and actresses,
developed beyond anything of the sort in history, makes the audience
largely sympathetic toward the characters they portray and the stories
in which they figure. Hence the audience is more ready to confuse
actor and actress and the characters they portray, and it is most
receptive of the emotions and ideals presented by the favorite stars.
G. Small communities, remote from sophistication and from the
hardening process which often takes place in the ethical and moral
standards of larger cities, are easily and readily reached by any sort
of film.
H. The grandeur of mass settings, large action, spectacular features,
etc., affects and arouses more intensely the emotional side of the
audience.
In general, the mobility, popularity, accessibility, emotional appeal,
vividness, straightforward presentation of fact in the film make for
more intimate contact with a larger audience and for greater emotional
appeal.
Hence the larger moral responsibilities of the motion pictures.
Reasons Underlying the General Principles
I. No picture shall be produced which 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, wrong-doing, evil or sin.
This is done:
1. When evil is made to appear attractive and alluring, and good is
made to appear unattractive.
2. When the sympathy of the audience is thrown on the side of crime,
wrongdoing, evil, sin. The same is true of a film that would thrown
sympathy against goodness, honor, innocence, purity or honesty.
Note: Sympathy with a person who sins is not the same as sympathy with
the sin or crime of which he is guilty. We may feel sorry for the
plight of the murderer or even understand the circumstances which led
him to his crime: we may not feel sympathy with the wrong which he has
done. The presentation of evil is often essential for art or fiction
or drama. This in itself is not wrong provided:
a. That evil is not presented alluringly. Even if later in the film
the evil is condemned or punished, it must not be allowed to appear so
attractive that the audience's emotions are drawn to desire or approve
so strongly that later the condemnation is forgotten and only the
apparent joy of sin is remembered.
b. That throughout, the audience feels sure that evil is wrong and
good is right.
II. Correct standards of life shall, as far as possible, be presented.
A wide knowledge of life and of living is made possible through the
film. When right standards are consistently presented, the motion
picture exercises the most powerful influences. It builds character,
develops right ideals, inculcates correct principles, and all this in
attractive story form.
If motion pictures consistently hold up for admiration high types of
characters and present stories that will affect lives for the better,
they can become the most powerful force for the improvement of
mankind.
III. Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy
be created for its violation.
By natural law is understood the law which is written in the hearts of
all mankind, the greater underlying principles of right and justice
dictated by conscience.
By human law is understood the law written by civilized nations.
1. The presentation of crimes against the law is often necessary for
the carrying out of the plot. But the presentation must not throw
sympathy with the crime as against the law nor with the criminal as
against those who punish him.
2. The courts of the land should not be presented as unjust. This does
not mean that a single court may not be presented as unjust, much less
that a single court official must not be presented this way. But the
court system of the country must not suffer as a result of this
presentation.
Reasons Underlying the Particular Applications
I. Sin and evil enter into the story of human beings and hence in
themselves are valid dramatic material.
II. In the use of this material, it must be distinguished between sin
which repels by it very nature, and sins which often attract.
a. In the first class come murder, most theft, many legal crimes,
lying, hypocrisy, cruelty, etc.
b. In the second class come sex sins, sins and crimes of apparent
heroism, such as banditry, daring thefts, leadership in evil,
organized crime, revenge, etc.
The first class needs less care in treatment, as sins and crimes of
this class are naturally unattractive. The audience instinctively
condemns all such and is repelled.
Hence the important objective must be to avoid the hardening of the
audience, especially of those who are young and impressionable, to the
thought and fact of crime. People can become accustomed even to
murder, cruelty, brutality, and repellent crimes, if these are too
frequently repeated.
The second class needs great care in handling, as the response of
human nature to their appeal is obvious. This is treated more fully
below.
III. A careful distinction can be made between films intended for
general distribution, and films intended for use in theatres
restricted to a limited audience. Themes and plots quite appropriate
for the latter would be altogether out of place and dangerous in the
former.
Note: The practice of using a general theatre and limiting its
patronage to "Adults Only" is not completely satisfactory and is only
partially effective.
However, maturer minds may easily understand and accept without harm
subject matter in plots which do younger people positive harm.
Hence: If there should be created a special type of theatre, catering
exclusively to an adult audience, for plays of this character (plays
with problem themes, difficult discussions and maturer treatment) it
would seem to afford an outlet, which does not now exist, for pictures
unsuitable for general distribution but permissible for exhibitions to
a restricted audience.
I. Crimes Against the Law
The treatment of crimes against the law must not:
1. Teach methods of crime.
2. Inspire potential criminals with a desire for imitation.
3. Make criminals seem heroic and justified.
Revenge in modern times shall not be justified. In lands and ages of
less developed civilization and moral principles, revenge may
sometimes be presented. This would be the case especially in places
where no law exists to cover the crime because of which revenge is
committed.
Because of its evil consequences, the drug traffic should not be
presented in any form. The existence of the trade should not be
brought to the attention of audiences.
The use of liquor should never be excessively presented. In scenes
from American life, the necessities of plot and proper
characterization alone justify its use. And in this case, it should be
shown with moderation.
II. Sex
Out of a regard for the sanctity of marriage and the home, the
triangle, that is, the love of a third party for one already married,
needs careful handling. The treatment should not throw sympathy
against marriage as an institution.
Scenes of passion must be treated with an honest acknowledgement of
human nature and its normal reactions. Many scenes cannot be presented
without arousing dangerous emotions on the part of the immature, the
young or the criminal classes.
Even within the limits of pure love, certain facts have been
universally regarded by lawmakers as outside the limits of safe
presentation.
In the case of impure love, the love which society has always regarded
as wrong and which has been banned by divine law, the following are
important:
1. Impure love must not be presented as attractive and beautiful.
2. It must not be the subject of comedy or farce, or treated as
material for laughter.
3. It must not be presented in such a way to arouse passion or morbid
curiosity on the part of the audience.
4. It must not be made to seem right and permissible.
5. It general, it must not be detailed in method and manner.
III. Vulgarity; IV. Obscenity; V. Profanity; hardly need further
explanation than is contained in the Code.
VI. Costume
General Principles:
1. The effect of nudity or semi-nudity upon the normal man or woman,
and much more upon the young and upon immature persons, has been
honestly recognized by all lawmakers and moralists.
2. Hence the fact that the nude or semi-nude body may be beautiful
does not make its use in the films moral. For, in addition to its
beauty, the effect of the nude or semi-nude body on the normal
individual must be taken into consideration.
3. Nudity or semi-nudity used simply to put a "punch" into a picture
comes under the head of immoral actions. It is immoral in its effect
on the average audience.
4. Nudity can never be permitted as being necessary for the plot.
Semi-nudity must not result in undue or indecent exposures.
5. Transparent or translucent materials and silhouette are frequently
more suggestive than actual exposure.
VII. Dances
Dancing in general is recognized as an art and as a beautiful form of
expressing human emotions.
But dances which suggest or represent sexual actions, whether
performed solo or with two or more; dances intended to excite the
emotional reaction of an audience; dances with movement of the
breasts, excessive body movements while the feet are stationary,
violate decency and are wrong.
VIII. Religion
The reason why ministers of religion may not be comic characters or
villains is simply because the attitude taken toward them may easily
become the attitude taken toward religion in general. Religion is
lowered in the minds of the audience because of the lowering of the
audience's respect for a minister.
IX. Locations
Certain places are so closely and thoroughly associated with sexual
life or with sexual sin that their use must be carefully limited.
X. National Feelings
The just rights, history, and feelings of any nation are entitled to
most careful consideration and respectful treatment.
XI. Titles
As the title of a picture is the brand on that particular type of
goods, it must conform to the ethical practices of all such honest
business.
XII. Repellent Subjects
Such subjects are occasionally necessary for the plot. Their treatment
must never offend good taste nor injure the sensibilities of an
audience.