Template:Hays Code

The Hays Code (the informal name for The Motion Picture Production Code), adopted in 1930 but not seriously enforced until 1934, was a set of rules governing American filmmaking that stifled American cinema for over three decades. After a wave of complaints and rulings about the content of movies in the early 20th century, which included the US Supreme Court ruling in Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio in 1917 (which said that film had no First Amendment protection as a form of expression) -- as well as a number of perceived immoral people within the industry itself (most infamously, Fatty Arbuckle) -- the Hays Code was a self-adopted censorship code designed to preempt a government-run censorship program. Will H. Hays created the Code, which placed a number of restrictions on all films to be produced by the Motion Picture Association of America.