How censorship can influence the history of cinema

Have you ever heard about the Hays code or the motion picture production code ? 

At the end of the 20's, the church asked hollywood to censor its films, so a priest and a catholic editor wrote the text setting out the censorship rules. But, at the time, there was only mute cinema, so, even when the first speaking movie appeared in 1927 (« The jazz singer »), the rules only applied for the pictures. The rules were useless because  « obsene » images were replaced by « obsene » dialogues.

That's why a second version of the Hays code was made in 1934, including censorship applicable to dialogue.

But that's not the important point here, we have to understand that realisators used the censorship and its limits to propose some movies and sequences which are today famous because they circomvented the rules in funny ways.

For example, the text said that a kiss could not last more than three seconds, and, during this period, Hitchcock propose the longest kiss of cinema history. So, how is it possible ? Well, the man in the sequence is kissing a girl when he's talking on the phone, and he's answering every three seconds, and then restarting kissing.

Also, girls could not get undressed on the screen, so, in a lot of movies at the time, we can see girls who are getting dress, which can be as sexy as the undressed sequences depending on the way they are doing it.

The censorship did not only change the movies, it changed the mainstream, it changed public life.

One rule said that we coulnd't see bully button on the screen, so actors started to wear high waist jeans, and then people started to wear high waist jeans too !

And even today people are wearing some because it's now « oldfashion » or « vintage ».

We can say it's only clothes but It's still changing the way we are all living, and that's only one example !