Vox video "How the Catholic Church censored Hollywood's Golden Age"

  • Thread starter Thread starter Maxirad
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
The Catholic Legion of Decency began as a cooperative effort. The Church reminded filmmakers that unlike the written word, moving pictures with real people were having an effect, good and bad. Hollywood agreed with the Church but didn’t keep their promises. The Legion would become the National Legion of Decency and yes, it had an effect on movies. Some movies received the Condemned label. The Legion quietly disappeared in the 1970s.

https://www.amazon.com/Cross-Cinema-National-Catholic-1933-1970/dp/0275941930
 
Last edited:
At the end of World War II, American military photographers that used movie cameras made a proposal to their superiors: “Show the public how terrible war really is.” Their proposal was rejected on the grounds that it would “have a bad effect on national morale.”
 
Pup7 said:
Was it the Samurai sword or the one with the WWII flashbacks and Leonard Nimoy?

They show the former all the time here on marathons. It’s one of my favorites, and you are right - it is deep.

It was on the most recent NYD marathon on the SciFy channel.
Click to expand...
S05E31 - The Encounter.

I’ve only watched that one a couple of times, it’s hard to watch. (TZ is my favorite television series of all time, I can’t count how many times I’ve seen some of the episodes.)

Another episode that is disturbingly relevant to today’s world is “The Obsolete Man.”

Some of the episodes of that show are downright prophetic…
 
Last edited:
It seems to me, like many Catholic institutions sadly, they tried to get hip and be more “open-minded” after Vatican II (and changed their name) and they ended up losing credibility with both faithful minded Catholics and the world. And so they basically became irrelevant. The USCCB tried to carry the torch for a while with little influence until 2010.
 
Last edited:
“get hip”? No, I don’t think so. They disappeared as the great attack on the Church started. Too many people wanted false “freedoms.” But what they have sown is in movies and TV shows today. Immorality in most cases. Dysfunctional characters. If it was wrong, it is now ‘good.’

Isaiah 5:20

New International Version
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

New Living Translation
What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.

English Standard Version
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
 
Not to the degree that they exist now. I’m a storyteller and I watched as people in Hollywood kept making things worse and worse as time passed. There is TV I can enjoy (most of it before 1965) and TV I can only observe and comment on. Most movies and TV shows are in the sewer, and a few make serial killers/murderers seem sympathetic. Human life? Means nothing.
 
True, but dysfunction was identified as dysfunction. Heroism was identified as heroic. There were shades of difference, and sometimes characters might, hopefully, become more heroic. This is very different from today, where dysfunction is labelled as heroic, where heroes are labelled as bad, or more often, stupid.
 
I’ve seen “heroes” do deals with bad guys for a “good” end or who are just a little less brutal than the bad guys. As our company’s Editor-in-Chief said at a recent meeting: “I want heroic characters that are heroes!” Real heroes. Yes, just like classic mythology, the hero is larger than life. He is willing to risk his life to save his people, the town he lives in, etc.

And the portrayal of men who are stupid idiots - even their kids know better. Or TV shows like Dexter. Seriously? That’s not entertainment. It’s all the depravity you never wanted on display. And all the ways you can be dysfunctional - even a whole family. Isn’t this great? No.
 
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
GLam1761 said:
an immoral and secular world view.
MGM has a clip at the start of each movie in which a
roaring lion is depicted… the Bible says: “the DEVIL
prowls around like a ROARING LION… resist him
therefore, firm in your Faith…” 1 Pet. 5:8
Click to expand...
Really?
Ben Hur and The 10 Commandments are movies that have an immoral view? What about The Passion by Mel Gibson? And just recently “The Star.”
And the lion from 1Peter 5:8 is a simile. Not an actual lion.
 
edwest211 said:
And the portrayal of men who are stupid idiots - even their kids know better.
Click to expand...
I’m a woman and I find that very offensive…
It’s almost like the writers are trying to bend over backward to make women look “better” than men.
For what purpose?
Not only is it silly, it’s hypocritical. The writers don’t even believe it–the women might be smarter, but they better be hot, or they won’t be casted in the role.
 
Last edited:
It’s part of the ongoing Leftist fantasy. Women should be in charge in fiction. The writers know what they’re doing. They’re only doing what they’ve been told. More women directing movies. This is all done on purpose. Even the Producers have been told.
 
To be fair, the RCC did engage in censorship. Prior to Vatican II there was something called the Index of Forbidden Books. Clergy taught that one could not read anything under pain of sin. Some very interesting books were on that list. I think Catcher in the Rye, Animal Farm, Atlas Shrugged, and others were listed. The Index was done away with after Vatican II.
To protect the morals of the faithful is a good thing. On the other hand, scholarship demands that people are to be trusted to react morally when confronted by situations that are antithetical to the faith.
The Magisterium is in a tough position. Then and now.
 
joeybaggz said:
To be fair, the RCC did engage in censorship. Prior to Vatican II there was something called the Index of Forbidden Books. Clergy taught that one could not read anything under pain of sin. Some very interesting books were on that list. I think Catcher in the Rye, Animal Farm, Atlas Shrugged, and others were listed. The Index was done away with after Vatican II.
To protect the morals of the faithful is a good thing. On the other hand, scholarship demands that people are to be trusted to react morally when confronted by situations that are antithetical to the faith.
The Magisterium is in a tough position. Then and now.
Click to expand...
joeybaggz said:
To be fair, the RCC did engage in censorship. Prior to Vatican II there was something called the Index of Forbidden Books. Clergy taught that one could not read anything under pain of sin. Some very interesting books were on that list. I think Catcher in the Rye, Animal Farm, Atlas Shrugged, and others were listed. The Index was done away with after Vatican II.
To protect the morals of the faithful is a good thing. On the other hand, scholarship demands that people are to be trusted to react morally when confronted by situations that are antithetical to the faith.
The Magisterium is in a tough position. Then and now.
Click to expand...
First, all institutions, religious and secular, engage in censorship. There are as many restrictions now as there were during the Legion of Decency era. Many very good movies that were made earlier could not be made today.

Second, the Church has a responsibility not only to “the faithful” but to everyone. Movies exploiting child sexuality were not permitted before, but sometimes are made now. If 1 percent of the people watching these movies act on those impulses, a lot of children are going to be harmed. It does no good to say, “If you don’t like it, don’t watch it” because those kids did not watch those movies. They got harmed.

The same is true of movies and video games that glorify shooting police. Police are placed at greater risk of getting shot, even if those police do not watch those movies or play those games. The Church has a responsibility here, not just to “protect the morals of the faithful”.
 
Last edited:
😆😆

My dad used to call it the Twiddle Zone (he was a huge fan for the record).
 
In my opinion, the old movie code was a good thing. It made the writers and directors a lot more creative. I’ve seen older movies that dealt with drug abuse, crime, sex etc. But they were not all in your face about it. For example the older version of Cape Fear - the one with Robert Mitchum shows the character Max Cady as a horrible sexual predator. But they did it with no four letter words. It was all in the writing, directing and the wonderfully scary performance of Mitchum. The re-make with Robert de Niro was full out over the top and in your face and in my opinion, not as good.
 
In night clubs, whenever some comedians ran out of good ideas they would simply switch to something sexual, to get a cheap laugh. But the availability of this “substitute” for good ideas caused many of them to stop working to come up with good ideas. The substitute became the norm.

In movies, Alfred Hitchcock worked hard to convey things indirectly. You did not see the sex or violence or tension etc, directly, but he made you imagine it. Hitchcock has been replaced by directors who do not work as hard. Audiences today are jaded by cheap belly laughs, cheap gore, and scripts that appear to have been written in 2 or 3 days.
 
Year after year, Hollywood purposely adds a little more and a little more bad. It never happens by accident. I’ve read movie treatments and worked on a movie script. It is all very, very carefully planned. Before the cameras roll, the entire story is depicted in black and white on storyboards - a kind of comic book depiction of key scenes. Then the Producer(s) walk in and say, “How much will it cost to make this scene?” meaning CGI or physical sets. The script goes through three edits: things are added, things are taken out. Then, another final “polish.”

Too many TV shows and movies include “issue advocacy.” This is promotion of lifestyles and behaviors that studios and Producers want in there. The more ‘bad’ people are exposed to, the less sensitive people become to sin and immoral and dysfunctional living. Then it becomes: “Hey. What’s the big deal?”

The Big Deal is WE cannot afford to accept any of this as acceptable. Period. One cable channel has a slogan: “No limits.” Practicing virtue, self-discipline and good, decent behavior is what we need, not what Hollywood is trying to make us like.
 
Last edited:
GLam1761 said:
We HAVE to censor movies, they are propaganda for

an immoral and secular world view.

MGM has a clip at the start of each movie in which a

roaring lion is depicted… the Bible says: “the DEVIL

prowls around like a ROARING LION… resist him

therefore, firm in your Faith…” 1 Pet. 5:8
Click to expand...
Wow. I don’t know where to begin with this. Just wow.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top