"When it comes to censorship in Hollywood, the bottom line is the
ticket line. That's the central message in Jon Lewis's provocative
and insightful investigation of the movie industry's history of
self-regulation.a]Lewis shows that Hollywood films are a triumph of
commerce over art, and that the film industry has consistently used
internal censorship and government-industrial collusion to
guarantee that its cash flow is never seriously threatened."
"-- The New York Times Book Review"
"a]an accomplished, comprehensive, and provocative new history
of censorship and the American film industrya]And what of the
perennial tussles between politicos and the film industry? All show
business, suggests Lewis, make-believe veiling the real power
structure that has nothing to do with morals, let alone art (it
would be interesting to get his take on the recent marketing
brouhaha and its relationship to the recent threatened actors and
writers strikes). A staggering saga worthy itself of a Hollywood
movie, Hollywood v. Hardcore is film history at its most
illuminating and intense."
" --The Boston Phoenix"
"As provocative as his sometimes X-rated subject matter, film
scholar Lewis detects an intimate relationship between the
seemingly strange bedfellows of mainstream Hollywood cinema and
hardcore pornography. From postal inspector Anthony Comstock to
virtue maven William Bennett, from the Hays Office that monitored
the golden age of Hollywood to the alphabet ratings system that
labels the motion pictures in today's multiplex malls, Lewis's wry,
informative, and always insightful study of American film
censorship demonstrates that the most effective media surveillance
happens before yousee the movie. Hollywood v. Hard Core is highly
recommended for audiences of all ages."
"--Thomas Doherty, author of Pre-Code Hollywood"
"Jon Lewis weaves a compelling narrative of how box office
needs-rather than moral strictures-have dictated the history of
film regulation. Telling the complex and fascinating story of how
Hollywood abandoned the Production Code and developed the ratings
system and then telling the even more compelling story of how the X
rating became a desirable marketing device when hard core
pornography became popular, Hollywood v. Hard Core reveals a great
deal about the true business of censorship."
"--Linda Williams, author of Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the
"Frenzy of the Visible""
"This is a fascinating account, both entertaining and
scholarly."
--"Journal of the West"
In 1972, "The Godfather" and "Deep Throat" were the two most
popular films in the country. One, a major Hollywood studio
production, the other an independently made "skin flick." At that
moment, Jon Lewis asserts, the fate of the American film industry
hung in the balance."
Spanning the 20th century, Hollywood v. Hard Core weaves a
gripping tale of censorship and regulation. Since the industry's
infancy, film producers and distributors have publicly regarded
ratings codes as a necessary evil. Hollywood regulates itself, we
have been told, to prevent the government from doing it for them.
But Lewis argues that the studios self-regulate because they are
convinced it is good for business, and that censorship codes and
regulations are a crucial part of what binds the various competing
agencies in the film business together.
Yet between 1968 and 1973 Hollywood films werefaltering at the
box office, and the major studios were in deep trouble. Hollywood's
principal competition came from a body of independently produced
and distributed films--from foreign art house film "Last Tango in
Paris" to hard-core pornography like "Behind the Green Door"--that
were at once disreputable and, for a moment at least, irresistible,
even chic. In response, Hollywood imposed the industry-wide MPAA
film rating system (the origins of the G, PG, and R designations we
have today) that pushed sexually explicit films outside the
mainstream, and a series of Supreme Court decisions all but
outlawed the theatrical exhibition of hard core pornographic films.
Together, these events allowed Hollywood to consolidate its iron
grip over what films got made and where they were shown, thus
saving it from financial ruin.
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