Lea Jacobs

Lea Jacobs' The Wages of Sin examines how the "fallen woman" genre was affected by censorship. This genre of film was often the most troublesome for Hollywood censors because of their subject matter—sexual transgressions such as adultery, prostitution, or extramarital sex as well as gold diggers. By examining the censorship case files of key representatives of this genre—The Easiest Way, Baby Face, Blonde Venus, Anna Karenina, Kitty Foyle, and Stella Dallas—Jacobs attempts to trace the process of censorship for each of these films. Did censors possess overarching authority, or were studios able to negotiate with the censors about film content? Could producers work around censors' requirements? How effective was self-regulation in the 1920s and early 1930s before the Production Code was 'enforced?' Jacobs attempts to answer these questions through examination of case files as well as examination of production files and films from before and after the 1934 enforcement of the Production Code.
Popular knowledge and accepted wisdom about the history of Hollywood suggest that self-regulation—that is, voluntary use of the Production Code by the studios—was non-existent. In 1934, in response to threats of boycotts, the MPDDA and Joseph Breen were able to make compliance mandatory, requiring that all films be approved by Breen's office and that all films display the PCA's seal of approval. Jacobs ably turns accepted wisdom on its head by demonstrating that voluntary regulation did have an affect on the finished product. Producers and censors worked together to make films compliant with the code, beginning their work when screenplays were in the development stage. "Films were not regularly suppressed, nor was material simply 'cut out'; rather, industry censors negotiated with producers throughout the pre-production process. (ix-x).
"Self-regulation was above all a way of figuring out how stories deemed potentially offensive could be rewritten to make them acceptable" (x). By examining fallen women films, Jacobs demonstrates the lengths that filmmakers had to go through to create innuendos of sexual immorality; such things could not be presented explicitly. The glamour or luxury gained by the gold digger was another concern; sin could not be seen as being profitable. The solution in the self-regulatory era was quite simple. Since the Code could tolerate some questionable scenes if the sin was denounced, "dire warnings…are inserted without prior motivations" and "endings often appear stressed or arbitrary" (152).
When adherence to the production code was made mandatory in 1934, studios were following the same production code. Now, however, the Production Code Administration was able to "integrate its requirements within the body of the narrative," both reducing the need for a jarring redemptive ending as well as "adjuring the double meanings and calculated ambiguities that game early thirties films their zest" (153). The new regime was able to embed its requirements into the narrative, which made it harder for studios to make the unacceptable acceptable with minor tweaking. Censorship was both subtler as well as more pervasive.
Through innovate use of newly available censorship records, Jacobs has gone a long way toward changing the perception that censorship began in 1934. Censorship had existed from the twenties. After 1934, though, the need to add punishing scenes was removed as society's disapproval for deviancy was embedded deep within the text of the film.… (meer)