Hollywood V. Hard Core: How the Struggle Over Censorship Created the Modern Film Industry

By Jon Lewis

Book Overview

A tale of censorship and regulation at the heart of the modern film industry

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 were faltering 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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814751431
• ISBN13: 9780814751435
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: New York University Press
• Length: 377 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Provocative Title, Thorough Study

Jon E. Lewis has written an interesting book in Hollywood v. Hard Core, although it does not entirely live up to or prove its subtitle, How the Struggle Over Censorship Created the Modern Film Industry, it often comes close. The climax of the book focuses on the battles of the late sixties and early seventies but its vision is much larger and encompasses film history from its origins until the battles at the beginning of this new millenium. He promises heroes and villains and he delivers them and even combines one person (Jack Valenti) in both roles, depending on who is talking about him, of course. The book is always fascinating as it ranges over the history of film and the author always makes the economics clear and central to the debate (something left to the side in most histories of film censorship.) Particularly interesting and illuminating is the section on the McCarthy period. A recommended read.