Cinema: New Code

The earthier facts of life, as most U.S. moviegoers know, often whisper but seldom thunder from the silver screen. U.S. movie makers are bound by ground rules: the industry’s own self-censorship code, first drafted in 1929. Last week the movie industry announced the code’s first major overhaul in a quarter-century. Items: ¶J Sex. “Open-mouth kissing” has been banned. Childbirth may now be “treated within the careful limits of good taste.” Abortion may be “suggested,” but must be seriously “condemned.” Seduction, rape, adultery and fornication “shall not be explicitly treated, nor . . . justified.” Prostitutes and their managers are now restricted to a once-over-lightly treatment. But the ban stays on perversion and venereal disease. If occasion demands, infants’ sex organs may now be exposed. ¶ Narcotics. Drug addiction and all its byproducts may now be freely depicted, but only if damned on all counts. ¶ Bigotry and Prejudice. Miscegenation may now be handled discreetly, but anything inciting hatred among peoples is taboo. To be “avoided”: the use of the words “chink, dago, frog, greaser, hunkie, kike, nigger, spik, wop, yid.”