Film Production Code - Essay Example

Studios were advised to heed the recommendations and Hays asked filmmakers to describe the plots of the films they were planning to produce to his office. Free speech did not extend to film making industry and motion pictures.

The industry was concerned over pointed profanity, suggestive or licentious nudity, inference of sex perversion, illegal trafficking of drugs, white slavery, sex hygiene and venereal diseases, scenes of actual childbirth, and ridicule of the clergy. One of the films that were produced in the pre-Code period that accelerated the need for the code was the Sign of the Cross. In addition to being profane, proponents of the code believed that the Film Production Code would do away with evident scenes of nudity that made direct inference to sex and ridiculed the clergy (Dixon et. al., 2008). 

The code was abandoned since it outgrew its importance as TV technology encroached. Movies were faced with serious competitive threats. With televisions, Americans did not have to leave the comfort of their homes to watch moving pictures. Hollywood decided to offer something that could not get on TV broadcasts, and this was under a more restrictive censorship code; Motion Picture Association of America. Thus, Film Production Code was abandoned (Gilbert, 2013).