The Hayes code was a voluntary industry standard (and rating was done by an independent Catholic controlled group). Legal censorship (er, censorship by law, not censorship of lawyers…aaggh, somebody disambiguate English) occurred by region and varied dramatically between jurisdictions. (According to my father, they were still slicing and dicing movies in South Florida in the late 1970′s, but this seems to have stopped almost everywhere with the acceptance of the MPAA system in the 1980′s.)

“A” and “B” films ultimately developed different distribution channels, but one consequence was that big studios wanted to make big bucks by making “A” films. (Though they pushed the Code as far as they could take it–the public still ate up racy material.)

The Code was extremely right-wing and restrictive, and this combined with fears of movies sinking in the South, contributed to the heavy racial segregation of movies. In the 1960′s there was a rash of social-reality movies, filmed in black & white and as far as I can tell generally on a lower budget, which shattered Hayes restrictions to deliver a message about the injustice of racial inequality. And I’m not talking about studio-produced movies like Twelve Angry Men that dance around the issue of race; I’m talking about The Defiant Ones. Anyway, by the end of the decade indie films were making money and Hollywood was striking out and the Code was deader than Zombie Mae West’s career.

Uhh well, especially if he looks like Hugh Jackman, I’d prolly be waiting in line!

You know what’s really erotic, yet unrecognized in our cheapened culture? Yes. The Jack LaLanne Power Juicer.

Ahem. Why purchase the FF 2000? Because sexy is sexy.

Now get back to the preferable ultra violence we’ve come to expect from good, clean family cinema. Boobs are icky. Brains on a wall are awesome.

A local newspaper interviewed a woman from the trailer court next door who complained that the porn was bleeding over onto her TV…”24 hours a day!”

So much to be concerned about, eh Alicia? 24 hours a day.

“Heh heh heh heh. Pleasant … dreeeeeeeammmms???”

[ /innersanctum ]

20 subscriptionz to yr newsletter plz?

Visions of naked thrusts and bursts of faux gasps of passion…

Erotica should be what arouses sensuality and sexual desire in the imagination.

(Thrusting heaving emphasis mine.)

Erotica according to dictionary.com: Literature or art intended to arouse sexual desire.

So: Anything from a description of bare ankles to photos of eight guys in leather masks going at it in a swimming pool full of whipped cream.

In other words, A. Colon has to begin with the premise that erotica means something other than what it means (because she says so) before she can even get to the part about Tarzan & Jane’s vine play.

You can see it here (alas, the quality of the YouTube video is iffy). Tame by modern standards but a shocker for 1934 (the Hays Code had been in effect for a couple years by that point!).

Never heard it called a “sleeping area” before — and what’s it doing up in a tree?

But I am detecting a certain lack of Party fervor. Where is Dash’s Che jumper? Where is his CCCP lapel pin? Better straighten up or it’s off to Gulag for you!