Hollywood, Main Street, and the Church
Trying to Censor the Movies Before the Production Code
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9449162 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Francis G Couvares (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1992 |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 584-584 |
| Publication date | 1992-12-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0678 • E-ISSN: 1080-6490 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2713216 |
| OpenAlex | W2317587977 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 4 |
THE LEGION OF DECENCY'S SENSATIONAL CAMPAIGN OF MOVIE BOYcotts, and movie industry's inauguration of self-censorship in response to that campaign, remain signal events in both scholarly and popular memory of depression-era Hollywood.1 As film historian Garth Jowett has noted, however, the unanswered question is why . . . did Catholic Church suddenly decide [in 1933-34] to bring its massive influence to bear on problem of motion picture immorality?2 This essay will argue that Catholic Church did not turn so suddenly toward Hollywood. It will also argue that encounter of Church and movie industry was in some degree less a struggle than a mutual embrace, motivated by an urge on part of both movie moguls and Catholic clerical and lay leaders to defend their institutional interest and achieve respectability and cultural authority in twentiethcentury America. This essay will further suggest that Hollywood's difficulties with censorship and consumer boycotts were part of a far wider kulturkampf, chronological boundaries of which span years approximately from 1870s to 1940s. In that cultural struggle, social accompaniments of industrialization -immigration and ethnic conflict; urbanization and rise of commercial mass culture set off a
Advertising · Art · Art history · Business · Code (set theory · Economics · Hollywood · Media studies · Production (economics · Programming language · Sociology · Visual arts · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Catholicism and Religious Studies · Computer Science · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History
| Citations per year | 0.19 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1999 - 2017 (19) |
| Highly cited | No |