In this study of Hollywood gangster films, Jonathan Munby examines their controversial content and how it was subjected to continual moral and political censure.
Beginning in the early 1930s, these films told compelling stories about ethnic urban lower-class desires to "make it" in an America dominated by Anglo-Saxon Protestant ideals and devastated by the Great Depression. By the late 1940s, however, their focus shifted to the problems of a culture maladjusting to a new peacetime sociopolitical order governed by corporate capitalism. The gangster no longer challenged the establishment; the issue was not "making it," but simply "making do."
Combining film analysis with archival material from the Production Code Administration (Hollywood's self-censoring authority), Munby shows how the industry circumvented censure, and how its altered gangsters (influenced by European filmmakers) fueled the infamous inquisitions of Hollywood in the postwar '40s and '50s by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Ultimately, this provocative study suggests that we rethink our ideas about crime and violence in depictions of Americans fighting against the status quo.

The theatre and drama of the late Georgian period have been the focus of a number of recent studies, but such work has tended to ignore its social and political contexts. Theatric Revolution redresses the balance by considering the role of stage censorship during the Romantic period, an era otherwise associated with the freedom of expression. Looking beyond the Royal theatres at Covent Garden and Drury Lane which have dominated most recent accounts of the period, this book examines the day-to-day workings of the Lord Chamberlain's Examiner of Plays and shows that radicalized groups of individuals continuously sought ways to evade the suppression of both playhouses and dramatic texts.
Incorporating a wealth of new research, David Worrall reveals the centrality of theatre within busy networks of print culture, politics of all casts, elite and popular cultures, and metropolitan and provincial audiences. Ranging from the drawing room of Queen Caroline's private theatrical to the song-and-supper dens of Soho and radical free and easies, Theatric Revolution deals with the complex vitality of Romantic theatrical culture, and its intense politicization at all levels. This fascinating new study will be of great value to cultural historians, as well as to literary and theatre scholars.

One of the original, and greatest defenses of free speech, originally published as a written 'speech.' Please visiti www.ArcManor.com for more works by this and other great authors.

What happens to journalists who expose uncomfortable truths? How far are journalists prepared to go in order to report a difficult story? "Silenced" provides answers to these questions with the stories of journalists who risked their careers so that the public might be informed. From China, where Jasper Becker, formerly Beijing bureau chief of the South China Morning Post, fought a lonely and unsuccessful battle against owners willing to soften the newspaper's reporting of the Chinese government in the hope of protecting mainland investments, to Zimbabwe where the harsh treatment of the Guardian's Andrew Meldrum led to him being arrested and forcibly deported from the country because he dared criticise President Robert Mugabe, "Silenced" is a forcible reminder of the risks - both personal and financial - accepted by the media on our behalf. In other parts of the world, journalists face more traditional problems. When faced with the threat of censorship, all of these journalists reacted in a similar manner - they chose to report and face the consequences. They decided to place the ethics of journalism above all other considerations.;As such they are proof that press freedom cannot exist without those who are willing to uphold its fundamental principals. "Silenced" is more than a book on the media. It is an expression of the bravery and persistence of journalists everywhere.

Miracles and Sacrilege is the story of the epochal conflict between censorship and freedom in film, recounted through an in-depth analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision striking down a government ban on Roberto Rossellini's film The Miracle (1950). In this extraordinary case, the Court ultimately chose to abandon its own longstanding determination that film comprised a mere 'business' unworthy of free-speech rights, declaring for the first time that the First Amendment barred government from banning any film as 'sacreligious.' Using legal briefs, affidavits, and other court records, as well as letters, memoranda, and other archival materials to elucidate what was at issue in the case, William Bruce Johnson also analyzes the social, cultural, and religious elements that form the background of this complex and hard-fought controversy, focusing particularly on the fundamental role played by the Catholic Church in the history of film censorship. Tracing the development of the Church in the United States, Johnson discusses the reasons it found The Miracle sacrilegious and how it attained the power to persuade civil authorities to ban it. The Court's decision was not only a milestone in the law of church-state relations, but it paved the way for a succession of later decisions which gradually established a firm legal basis for freedom of expression in the arts.

In Dirt for Art's Sake, Elisabeth Ladenson recounts the most visible of modern obscenity trials involving scandalous books and their authors. What, she asks, do these often-colorful legal histories have to tell us about the works themselves and about a changing cultural climate that first treated them as filth and later celebrated them as masterpieces?

Ladenson's narrative starts with Madame Bovary (Flaubert was tried in France in 1857) and finishes with Fanny Hill (written in the eighteenth century, put on trial in the United States in 1966); she considers, along the way, Les Fleurs du Mal, Ulysses, The Well of Loneliness, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Tropic of Cancer, Lolita, and the works of the Marquis de Sade. Over the course of roughly a century, Ladenson finds, two ideas that had been circulating in the form of avant-garde heresy gradually became accepted as truisms, and eventually as grounds for legal defense. The first is captured in the formula "art for art's sake" the notion that a work of art exists in a realm independent of conventional morality. The second is realism, vilified by its critics as "dirt for dirt's sake." In Ladenson's view, the truth of the matter is closer to dirt for art's sake "the idea that the work of art may legitimately include the representation of all aspects of life, including the unpleasant and the sordid.

Ladenson also considers cinematic adaptations of these novels, among them Vincente Minnelli's Madame Bovary, Stanley Kubrick's Lolita and the 1997 remake directed by Adrian Lyne, and various attempts to translate de Sade's works and life into film, which faced similar censorship travails. Written with a keen awareness of ongoing debates about free speech, Dirt for Art's Sake traces the legal and social acceptance of controversial works with critical acumen and delightful wit."

A global history of free speech, from the ancient world to today. Hailed as the "first freedom," free speech is the bedrock of democracy. But it is a challenging principle, subject to erosion in times of upheaval. Today, in democracies and authoritarian states around the world, it is on the retreat. In Free Speech, Jacob Mchangama traces the riveting legal, political, and cultural history of this idea. Through captivating stories of free speech's many defenders - from the ancient Athenian orator Demosthenes and the ninth-century freethinker al-Razi, to Mary Wollstonecraft, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and modern-day digital activists - Mchangama demonstrates how the free exchange of ideas underlies all intellectual achievement and has enabled the advancement of both freedom and equality worldwide. Yet the desire to restrict speech is also a constant, and he explores how even its champions can be led down this path when the rise of new and contrarian voices challenge power and privilege of all kinds. Meticulously researched, deeply humane and provocative, Free Speech challenges us all to recognise how much we have gained from this principle - and how much we stand to lose without it.

This incisive guide provides a much needed summary of the complex issues surrounding film censorship and controversy. It offers practical suggestions for teaching the determining factors in, and ideological importance of, censorship and classification. Also included are proposed strategies for discussing "problem films," analyzing texts, and debating the nature of effects. Contents include:
* The historical context for censorship and classification
* The discourses and ideologies that inform and produce controversy
* The arguments for and against censorship
* Concepts of audiences and effects
* Textual meanings
* Audience research and analysis of data
* Contemporary academic and official perspectives on censorship and classification

The only thing Hollywood likes more than a good movie is a good deal. For more than fifty years producers and directors of war and action movies have been getting a great deal from America's armed forces by receiving access to billions of dollars worth of military equipment and personnel for little or no cost. Although this arrangement considerably lowers a film's budget, the cost in terms of intellectual freedom can be quite steep. In exchange for access to sophisticated military hardware and expertise, filmmakers must agree to censorship from the Pentagon.
As veteran Hollywood journalist David L. Robb shows in this revealing insider's look into Hollywood's "dirtiest little secret," the final product that moviegoers see at the theater is often not just what the director intends but also what the powers-that-be in the military want to project about America's armed forces. Sometimes the censor demands removal of just a few words; other times whole scenes must be scrapped or completely revised. What happens if a director refuses the requested changes? Robb quotes a Pentagon spokesman: "Well I'm taking my toys and I'm going home. I'm taking my tanks and my troops and my location, and I'm going home." That can be quite a persuasive threat to a filmmaker trying to keep his movie within budget.
Robb takes us behind the scenes during the making of many well-known movies. From The Right Stuff to Top Gun and even Lassie, the list of movies in which the Pentagon got its way is very long. Only when a director is determined to spend more money than necessary to make his own movie without interference, as in the case of Oliver Stone in the creation of Platoon or Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now, is a film released that presents the director's unalloyed vision.
For anyone who loves movies and cares about freedom of expression, Operation Hollywood is an engrossing, shocking, and very entertaining book.

"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings," declared German poet Heinrich Heine. This book identifies the regime-sponsored, ideologically driven, and systemic destruction of books and libraries in the 20th century that often served as a prelude or accompaniment to the massive human tragedies that have characterized a most violent century. Using case studies of libricide committed by Nazis, Serbs in Bosnia, Iraqis in Kuwait, Maoists during the Cultural Revolution in China, and Chinese Communists in Tibet, Knuth argues that the destruction of books and libraries by authoritarian regimes was sparked by the same impulses toward negation that provoked acts of genocide or ethnocide. Readers will learn why some people--even those not subject to authoritarian regimes--consider the destruction of books a positive process. Knuth promotes understanding of the reasons behind extremism and patterns of cultural terrorism, and concludes that what is at stake with libricide is nothing less than the preservation and continuation of the common cultural heritage of the world. Anyone committed to freedom of expression and humanistic values will embrace this passionate and valuable book.

A thorough exploration of an individual's right to bodily autonomy versus the state's power to regulate and control the bodies of its citizens. The Human Body on Trial asks the basic question: Who's in charge of your body-you or the authorities? Four narrative chapters examine key constitutional questions addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court over the past century concerning the power of the state to regulate the human body, placing the issues in historical context and examining the contemporary legal and medical knowledge that informed each decision. The book focuses on individual cases, such as Jacobson v. Massachusetts (compulsory vaccination), Buck v. Bell (forced sterilization), and Roe v. Wade (abortion), and discusses such controversial issues as AIDS testing and physician-assisted suicide. A special reference section includes court decisions and other primary documents. Timeline of major events in the evolution of the legal right of individual autonomy from the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 to the 2002 ruling in State of Oregon and Peter Rasmussen, et al. v. John Ashcroft regarding implementing Oregon's Death with Dignity Act Excerpts from key legal documents from the Roe v. Wade (1973) decision to the lesser known Skinner v. Oklahoma (1942) ruling by the Supreme Court overturning the mandated sterilization for three-time offenders convicted of certain felonies

What rallies or inspires people to champion the different causes surrounding filtering or free expression? How do people vary in their views on what the First Amendment guarantees? This book encourages students to think critically about the pros and cons of censorship. The profiles of individuals who are active in free speech debates show that while there aren't always black and white answers, there are numerous ways to take a firm stand on the issues.

Readers will be introduced to a wide variety of people, from feminists arguing both sides of the debate over pornography, to those who believe no one can clearly define what is harmful and what is not. The book also presents people motivated by religious convictions to censor material they consider negative or detrimental. Fifty individual stories about activists on frontlines, fighting for what they believe, bring the controversies surrounding filtering and freedom of expression into sharp focus, offering a rich platform for consideration and debate.

" The new edition of this seminal work takes the story of the Production Code and motion picture censorship into the present, including the creation of the PG-13 and NC-17 ratings in the 1990s.

The Tudor and Stuart eras have been described as England's golden age, in large part because of the flowering of its literary and dramatic culture. Ironically, repressive government controls over freedom of expression existed side-by-side with some of the greatest literary accomplishments of the age, and many of the same issues we wrestle with today were being hotly debated in Renaissance England. This reference book provides a means for students and scholars to combine the highly popular topics of censorship and Renaissance studies. The 92 entries in this book highlight the major issues which could provoke the wrath of the censor, the ways in which works were modified in response to censorship, and the fate of the authors who roused the censor's ire. Entries are arranged alphabetically by title of the censored work. Each provides basic factual information, including the name of the author, the publication date, the date of censorship, the type of work, and the offending issue; a discussion of the work's historical context; a synopsis of the contents; an examination of how the work was censored; and a brief bibliography. Although there is a wealth of information on censorship in the twentieth century, this is one of the few reference books to address censorship during the Renaissance.

Those who love and live by art tell us that it is the most exalted expression of civilized life. In this provocative new book Jonathan Dollimore argues that, far from confirming humane values, literature more often than not violates them.

He begins with a polemical and witty attack on the spurious radicalism of some fashionable academic theories about desire and sexual dissidence. Dollimore then examines the ways in which the media, literary critics and the state, as well as these literary theorists, all deny or repress the disturbing and dangerous knowledge conveyed by literature.

His own account of the volatile connections between aesthetics, desire, politics and censorship unfolds through topics such as homosexuality, bisexuality, sexual disgust, and the disturbing relations between art and inhumanity, and through brilliant insights into a wide range of authors including Euripides, Shakespeare, Tennyson and Yeats.

Most persistently, this book is about how the experience of desire in life and art compromises our most cherished ethical beliefs; how it sets dissident desire against not just oppressive social life, but also against what are widely agreed to be the necessary limits of civilization itself. If this helps make art irresistible and of indispensable value, it follows too that there are reasonable grounds for wanting to censor it.

This compelling and accessibly written book will be essential reading for students and scholars of literary, gender and cultural studies, and will have a major impact on debates about art, sexuality, censorship and the role of the intellectual.

During World War II, the civilian Office of Censorship supervised a huge and surprisingly successful program of news management: the voluntary self-censorship of the American press. In January 1942, censorship codebooks were distributed to all American newspapers, magazines, and radio stations with the request that journalists adhere to the guidelines within. Remarkably, over the course of the war no print journalist, and only one radio journalist, ever deliberately violated the censorship code after having been made aware of it and understanding its intent.

"Secrets of Victory" examines the World War II censorship program and analyzes the reasons for its success. Using archival sources, including the Office of Censorship's own records, Michael Sweeney traces the development of news media censorship from a pressing necessity after the attack on Pearl Harbor to the centralized yet efficient bureaucracy that persuaded thousands of journalists to censor themselves for the sake of national security. At the heart of this often dramatic story is the Office of Censorship's director Byron Price. A former reporter himself, Price relied on cooperation with--rather than coercion of--American journalists in his fight to safeguard the nation's secrets.

Who hasn't read Blubber? And yet, published in 1974 and a New York Times ""Outstanding Book,"" it remains one of the ""100 Most Frequently Challenged Books"" and is kept out of many school libraries. As a standard-bearer for intellectual freedom, the school librarian is in an ideal position to collaborate with teachers to not only protect the freedom to read but also ensure that valued books with valuable lessons are not quarantined from the readers for whom they were written. In this classroom and library-ready book of discussion guides, award-winning champion of children's literature Pat Scales shows that there is a way to teach these books while respecting all views. The twelve books chosen for inclusion in Teaching Banned Books, all challenged at one time or another, are jumping off points for rich and engaging discussion among young readers, their librarians and teachers, and their parents. Each guide includes a summary of the novel, a pre-reading activity, tips for introducing the topic, critical-thinking discussion questions, and an annotated bibliography of related fiction and nonfiction. Describing a literature discussion program she set up as a middle school librarian, Scales says: ""The idea was to have parents read the same books that their children were reading and to come together once a month to discuss these books. These parents understood that Blubber by Judy Blume is a harsh reality of the life of many fifth and sixth graders. But what they also learned was how to discuss this with their children. They began calling me and asking me for books about teenage sexuality, death, and dealing with bullies. And we never had a censorship case."" And so in this book, you will find discussion guides for books dealing with such tough subjects as societal outcasts, civil rights, and keeping secrets. Armed with award-winning books that kids love, you will: * Stimulate critical-thinking in reading. * Encourage freedom of thought and expression. * Integrate First Amendment principles into project-based social studies and language arts classes. * Communicate the value of banned books to administrators and challengers. There's a win-win way of teaching banned books, and Pat Scales shares it in this brilliant handbook for educators and school librarians who serve today's young readers.

In 1950 Ruth W. Brown, librarian at the Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Public Library, was summarily dismissed from her job after thirty years of exemplary service, ostensibly because she had circulated subversive materials. In truth, however, Brown was fired because she had become active in promoting racial equality and had helped form a group affiliated with the Congress of Racial Equality.

Louise S. Robbins tells the story of the political, social, economic, and cultural threads that became interwoven in a particular time and place, creating a strong web of opposition. This combination of forces ensnared Ruth Brown and her colleagues-for the most part women and African Americans-who championed the cause of racial equality.

This episode in a small Oklahoma town almost a half-century ago is more than a disturbing local event. It exemplifies the McCarthy era, foregrounding those who labored for racial justice, sometimes at great cost, before the civil rights movement. In addition, it reveals a masking of concerns that led even Brown's allies to obscure the cause of racial integration for which she fought. Relevant today, Ruth Brown's story helps us understand the matrix of personal, community, state, and national forces that can lead to censorship, intolerance, and the suppression of individual rights.

Licensing, Censorship and Authorship in Early Modern England examines in detail both how the practice of censorship shaped writing in the Shakespearean period, and how our sense of that censorship continues to shape modern understandings of what was written. Separate chapters trace the development of licensing in the theatre, and the response of the actors and dramatists to it. There are detailed examinations of how censorship affects our reading of four major playwrights: Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson and Middleton, and of how the control of printed books compared with that of the stage.

From 1815 to 1914, European governments and their political oppositions were engaged in a constant "war" for the minds of the general population, especially the working classes. The German socialist newspaper, Hamburger Echo, declared on September 27, 1910, "In waging our war, we do not throw bombs. Instead we throw our newspapers amongst the masses of the working people. Printing ink is our explosive." The most comprehensive study ever published about European censorship practices during the 1815-1914 period, this book discusses the censorship of books, newspapers, caricatures, theater, and film through an analytical introductory survey and six chapters by leading specialists who summarize 19th-century censorship practices in the six major countries of continental Europe: Germany, Italy, France, Austria, Russia, and Spain. As a result of the massive transformation of European life in the post-Napoleonic period and the simultaneously rapid growth in industrialization, urbanization, literacy, transportation, and communication, the average European emerged quite suddenly as a potential player who could no longer be ignored by the ruling elite.

Presenting an overview of information control in America, this volume discusses why some works of art and literature are controversial, and examines the arguments of both those who advocate unlimited free speech and those who would impose some limits. Censorship in America discusses why many objects of art, literature, and popular culture are considered controversial, and examines the arguments of both sides. It explores the current wave of censorship in the form of political correctness and covers groundbreaking litigation and proposed legislation.

Examining the various boundaries of American artistic tolerance, chapters address the societal and legal responses to rock and rap music. Artistic expression has historically clashed with mainstream views, resulting in apprehension acted upon internally and externally, especially when expression is aimed toward children or young adults. This work studies the mass media content and programming in network television, "Rolling Stone" magazine, and the "New York Times" reviews and spot news concerning rock and rap music. The National Endowment for the Arts, the FCC, and the music industry's internal responses to parents and adults are discussed as well. Inhibitions and censoring, it is argued, stem from adult concerns for a healthy functioning society and from anxiety about the impact of sexual explicitness and uncontrolled behavioral expression on adolescents. This work attempts to explain why societal intolerance has a pattern of limiting the lyrics and sounds of rock and rap music.

Uniquely combining both societal and legal viewpoints on censorship of America's popular music culture, these essays address issues of concern to various scholars including those studying mass media, censorship, and American popular culture. Legal appendices are included as useful references, such as the National Endowments for the Arts Obscenity and Rejections Sections.

The recent history of broadcasting on both sides of the Atlantic, characterized by a great increase in the number of services on offer to the public, has been brought about by technological advances and economic pressures. This has inevitably affected traditional forms of content regulation. The book explores the moral basis and history of such regulation as it has until now been applied to major issues of taste and decency. These include the protection of children, obscenity and bad language, offences against religious sensibility, `reality' television, and stereotyping. What Should We Watch? considers the different constraints (in the law, cultural customs, and self-regulation) affecting broadcasters in the two societies and the means by which they have responded to them. The book describes, with examples, the operations of compliance regulations and standard controls. It also looks at the impact of the First Amendment on American broadcasting in this area. It looks at the arguments for the practicality of maintaining appropriate forms of restraint into the future. What Should We Watch? poses the question of how divided and diverse societies decide what is permissible to broadcast and how the issue might continue to evolve in the future.

Many parents, politicians, and activists agree that there's too much violence and not enough education on children's television. Current solutions range from the legislative (the Children's Television Act of 1990) to the technological (the V-chip). Saturday Morning Censors examines the history of adults' attempts to safeguard children from the violence, sexism, racism, and commercialism on television since the 1950s. By focusing on what censorship and regulation are and how they work-rather than on whether they should exist-Heather Hendershot shows how adults use these processes to reinforce their own ideas about childhood innocence. Drawing on archival studio material, interviews with censors and animators, and social science research, Hendershot analyzes media activist strategies, sexism and racism at the level of cartoon manufacture, and the product-linked cartoons of the 1980s, such as Strawberry Shortcake and Transformers. But in order to more fully examine adult reception of children's TV, she also discusses "good" programs like Sesame Street and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. Providing valuable historical context for debates surrounding such current issues as the V-chip and the banning of Power Rangers toys in elementary schools, Saturday Morning Censors demonstrates how censorship can reveal more fears than it hides. Saturday Morning Censors will appeal to educators, parents, and media activists, as well as to those in cultural studies, television studies, gender studies, and American social history.

Despite heavy censorship and sometimes outright control by either Vichy or the Germans, the authorized press is a useful and necessary source for anyone studying the period of German occupation and the Vichy government in France. The daily and weekly political press, the press created by Vichy for its Chantiers de la Jeunesse youth movement, its Legion of War veterans and its Peasant Corporation for agriculture show the regime's ideology and priorities. A wide variety of other periodicals, including religious publications, advertising papers, trade papers, and sports papers, provides insights into the professional and local life of the period. This book provides a guide to the authorized press of the occupation period.

With a list of 2500 periodicals, the book covers the more important daily, weekly, bimonthly, monthly, and quarterly publications in Paris and the departments. The periodicals are listed by subject for Paris, alphabetically for the departments. For each periodical, the book gives city of publication, approximate beginning and ending dates, and library or archive where the periodical is held as well as other available information such as the periodical's prewar political position, what the periodical said about itself, its relationship with Vichy or the Germans, and successor publication. If a book or article has been written about the periodical, it is also included.