Based
on the video lecture consider: How did the culture of 1950s America contribute
to the closeting of queer identites? Brief Answer: Specific Example from
Lecture and/or the film the Celluloid Closet: Specific Example from Assigned
Readings: How did queer individuals react and resist efforts to oppress them
and suppress queer culture? Brief Answer: Specific Example from Lecture and/or
the film the Celluloid Closet: Specific Example from Assigned Readings: Based
on the documents below consider: What was the Hays Code and how did it
influence the content of films? What specifically did censors object to in the
scripts of the film North by Northwest and Suspicion? What did pulp fiction
writers have to do to get their stories to pass the censors? In what ways do
the pulp novel covers reflect the contradictory nature of queer
representation during this era of censorship? Regardless of the intent of
writers or censors, how were these films and novels read by quee raudiences? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA1Wjc8_ydI Source
A The Motion Picture Production Code, 1934 Source: The Motion Picture
Production Code, 1934. Reprinted in the Motion Picture Herald, August 11, 1934,
11. Context: In the early 1920s, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors
of America (MPPDA) appointed Will Hays, a former United States Postmaster, to
preview films for objectionable content. In 1929, Martin Quigley and Reverend
Daniel A. Lord drafted the Motion Picture Production Code, popularly known as
the Hays Code. Censors relied on the code to regulate the content of motion
pictures from 1930–1968. The code as it was strictly enforced beginning in 1934
forbade any depiction or inference of sex perversion (homosexuality) and
insisted that “The sanctity of the institution of marriage and the home shall
be upheld. Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationship are the
accepted or common thing.” Furthermore, “the sympathy of the audience should
never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.” The Production
Code mandated either the complete invisibility of same-sex relationships or the
unsympathetic portrayal of suspected homosexuals and a condemnation of
homosexual behaviors. Source B Letter from Joseph Breen to J. J. Nolan, 1941
Source: Letter from Joseph Breen to J. J. Nolan, February 6, 1941 regarding the
film Suspicion (Before the Fact), 1941, Motion Picture Association of America,
Production Code Administration records, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Source C Letter from Geoffrey Shurlock to
Robert Vogel, 1958 Source: Letter from Geoffrey Shurlock to Robert Vogel,
August 21, 1958 regarding North by Northwest, Motion Picture Association of
American Production Code Administration records, Margaret Herrick Library,
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Source D Report of the Select
Committee on Current Pornographic Materials Source: Report of the Select
Committee on Current Pornographic Materials, House of Representatives,
Eighty-Second Congress (Washington D.C.
Government Printing Office, 1952), 36-40. Context: The content and story arcs
of novels and plays were influenced by the efforts of moral reformers and
censors to label queer storylines obscene. As early as the 1870s, the Comstock
laws criminalized the mailing of materials deemed obscene. Censorship campaigns
similarly targeted literature and the production of plays. In 1950, Tereska
Torres’ book, Women’s BarracksMarijane Meaker’s book, Spring Fire, and Andre
Tellier’s Twilight Men were among the books that came under fire in Congress in
the House of Representatives Select Committee on Current Pornographic
Materials. These books, which described queer people or queer relationships,
were criticized for depicting homosexuality and therefore promoting so-called
moral degeneracy. “Not only are some of these books are filled with sordid,
filthy statements based upon sexual deviations and perversions probably
unfamiliar to the type of reader who now buys them, but in some instances they
also go so far as to advocate polygamy . . . other books extol by their
approbatory language accounts of homosexuality, lesbianism, and other sexual
aberrations . . . examination of the quotations from pocket-size books and the
entire books submitted in the hearings will reveal that such books are
published and distributed throughout the Nation to be made accessible on
newsstands to adults and juveniles alike. It presents a picture of
demoralization for profit.” Source E Marijane Meaker Quote Source: Marijane
Meaker quoted in the 2004 reprint of Vin Packer’s 1952 book Spring Fire (San
Francisco: Cleis Press Inc., 2004), vi. Context: In order to bypass censors,
pulp novel writers often had to rewrite the endings of their books to cast
a negative light or condemn homosexuality. The queer characters in books
therefore often had to reform their ways and turn back to a cisheterosexual
lifestyle or suffer unhappy endings punctuated by death or insanity. Marijane
Meaker (Vin Packer), a popular 1950s pulp fiction writer, described the meeting
with her editor, Dick Carroll where she told him she wanted to write about a
relationship between two girls in her proposed book Spring Fire: “You might
have a good story there,” Dick said, “but … you cannot make homosexuality
attractive. No happy ending…” In other words, my heroine has to decide she’s
not really queer”… “That’s it. And the one she’s involved with is sick or
crazy.” Source F Queer Pulp Novels Source: The Lesbian Pulp Fiction Collection
at Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, https://msvulpf.omeka.net Passions
Uncovered: Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Pulps, University of Saskatchewan
Library,Canada https://library2.usask.ca/srsd/pulps/ Context:
Due in part to conflicts between the intent of novel writers and the content
rules imposed by censors, queer pulp novels often reflect contradictory
messages. On the one hand the stories were exceptional and revolutionary for
detailing stories of queer people, but on the other hand these stories often
ended sadly with the queer character conforming to cisheterosexual norms or
punished by insanity or death. Yet, the mere fact that queer stories were being
told in fiction suggests that there was a willing audience that at least
to some extent was interested in stories featuring homosexual relationships.
Scholars have observed that pulp fiction, thus proved a subversive act when
read and co-opted by queer people as an affirmation of their
own identities.
