Film Censorship

Catalog description

The censorship of art and media is an enduring feature of our culture. This advanced film history seminar course in Film Censorship explores the history of Hollywood motion picture censorship and efforts to regulate American films. The class historically spans U.S. cinema censorship from the early silent film period, the ‘pre-Code’ years and classic studio system ‘Golden Age’—in which film censorship thrived—to postclassical late 1960s challenges and contemporary New Hollywood efforts to regulate screen content in an era of Netflix. This course will examine film censorship in relation to motion picture studio and filmmaker efforts to produce cinema as an art form, as an industrial business strategy, as powerful cinematic mythology, and as a cultural product. While focused on a specific medium, Film Censorship will enrich students' understanding of efforts to censor and control popular culture across all forms of media and cultural contexts.