Censorship and State Regulation

Kendall R. Phillips

doi:10.1017/9781009071550.007

5 - Censorship and State Regulation

from Part I - Histories

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 July 2022

Kendall R. Phillips

Edited by

Stephen Shapiro and

Mark Storey

Show author details

Stephen Shapiro: Affiliation:
University of Warwick
Mark Storey: Affiliation:
University of Warwick

Book contents

Get access

Summary

While rarely at the center of debates around censorship in the United States, horror narratives have been profoundly shaped by pressures to constrain their provocative and shocking nature. This chapter explores the history of censorship efforts by government agencies, media companies, and public organizations and the impact they have had on horror across all forms of media. Tracing these efforts across various media, including literature, comic books, motion pictures, radio, and television, this chapter details the various entities that have tried to constrain the horror genre and the ways horror has adapted to these changing conditions. Throughout this historical period, regulatory efforts have consistently sought to limit shocking imagery and as well as restrict the evocation of feelings of shock and horror. Examining this regulatory history gives insights into the dynamic and evolving public dialogue about the limits of social acceptance and how much transgression society can accept.

Keywords

censorship literature comic books film radio television

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Companion to American Horror , pp. 76 - 90

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009071550.007 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Blum, D. Telegram to Samuel Marx, September 12, 1935. Motion Picture Association of America, Production Code Files, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, Beverly Hills, CA.Google Scholar

Boyer, Paul S. Purity in Print: The Vice-Society Movement and Book Censorship in America, 2nd ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002.Google Scholar

Butters, Gerald R. Banned in Kansas: Motion Picture Censorship, 1915–1966. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007.Google Scholar

“C&S Again on the Spot.” Radio Daily (February 4, 1938), 1.Google Scholar

Cherry, Bridgit. True Blood: Investigating Vampires and Southern Gothic. London: I. B. Tauris, 2012.CrossRef Google Scholar

“Defends Children’s Shows.” Radio Daily (November 12, 1937), 3.Google Scholar

Dennis, Donna. “Obscenity Law and the Conditions of Freedom in Nineteenth-Century United States.” Law & Social Inquiry 27, no. 2 (2002): 369–99.CrossRef Google Scholar

“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” November 9, 1920. Censorship file from the Kansas Board of Review. Kansas Historical Society. Box No. 35-06-06-06. Topeka, KS.Google Scholar

Eberly, Rosa A. Citizen Critics: Literary Public Spheres. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000.Google Scholar

“FCC Staffers Become Licensee Pen Pals.” Broadcasting (February 19, 1962), 102–3.Google Scholar

Gamer, Michael. Romanticism and the Gothic: Genre, Reception, and Canon Formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.CrossRef Google Scholar

Grieveson, Lee. Policing Cinema: Movies and Censorship in Early Twentieth-Century America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.CrossRef Google Scholar

“The Haunted House.” November 11, 1917. Censorship file from the Kansas Board of Review. Kansas Historical Society. Box Number 35-06-06-09. Topeka, KS.Google Scholar

Hays, Will H. Letter to Harry Zehnder, February 26, 1934. Production Code Administration Correspondence, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, CA.Google Scholar

Jamarillo, Deborah L. “Astrological TV: The Creation and Destruction of a Genre.” Communication, Culture & Critique 8 (2015): 309–26.Google Scholar

Joshi, Sunand Tryambak, and Schultz, David E.. An HP Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001.Google Scholar

Jowett, L., and Abbott, Stacey. TV Horror: Investigating the Dark Side of the Small Screen. London: Bloomsbury Press, 2013.Google Scholar

Joy, Jason S. Letter to Will H. Hays, December 5, 1931. Production Code Administration Correspondence, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, CA.Google Scholar

Levi, Lili. “The FCC’s Regulation of Indecency.” First Reports 7, no. 1 (2008): 1–98.Google Scholar

“Listening to Radio Is Third Principal Activity of Child.” Broadcast (June 1, 1936), 11.Google Scholar

McGarry, Molly. “Spectral Sexualities: Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism, Moral Panics, and the Making of U.S. Obscenity Law.” Journal of Women’s History 12, no. 2 (2000): 8–29.Google Scholar

Naylor, Alex. “‘A horror picture at this time is a very hazardous undertaking’: Did British or American Censorship End the 1930s Horror Cycle?” Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies 9 (2011): 44–59.Google Scholar

“No FCC Action Due in Radio ‘War’ Case.” New York Times (November 2, 1938), 26.Google Scholar

Nodelman, Perry. “Ordinary Monstrosity: The World of Goosebumps.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 22, no. 3: (1997): 118–25.Google Scholar

Nyberg, Amy Kiste. Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998.Google Scholar

O’Connor, Thomas F. “The National Organization for Decent Literature: A Phase in American Catholic Censorship.” The Library Quarterly 65, no. 4: (1995): 386–414.CrossRef Google Scholar

“Payne Launching Drive on Juvenile Programs.” Radio Daily (November 12, 1937), 1.Google Scholar

Phillips, Kendall R. “Fear of Film: Cinema and Affective Entanglements.” In Philosophy, Film and the Dark Side of Interdependence, ed. Beever, Jonathan. New York: Rowan & Littlefield, 2020.Google Scholar

“Picture Shows All Put Out of Business.” New York Times (December 25, 1908), 1.Google Scholar

Plato. Republic. Trans. Waterfield, Robin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.Google Scholar

Pondillo, Robert. America’s First Network TV Censor: The Work of NBC’s Stockton Helffrich. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2010.Google Scholar

Power, Brenda M., Wilhelm, Jeffrey, and Chandler, Kelly, eds. Reading Stephen King: Issues of Censorship, Student Choice, and Popular Literature. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1997.Google Scholar

“Rep. Randall Asks for Sex-Violence TV Curbs.” Broadcasting (April 20, 1962), 58.Google Scholar

Reyes, Amanda. Are You in the House Alone? Truro, MA: Headpress, 2017.Google Scholar

Schoell, William. The Horror Comics: Fiends, Freaks and Fantastic Creatures, 1940s–1980s. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press, 2014.Google Scholar

Schwartz, A. Brad. Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News. New York: Hill and Wang, 2015.Google Scholar

Simmons, Jerold. “The Production Code under New Management: Geoffrey Shurlock, The Bad Seed, and Tea and Sympathy.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 22, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 2–10.Google Scholar

“Teeth Pulled from Code Adopted by NAB.” Heinl Radio Business Letter (July 14, 1939), 2–3.Google Scholar

“Terrorist Novel Writing.” In Spirit of the Public Journals for 1797, vol. 1. London: James Ridgway, 1802.Google Scholar

Tittle, Miles. “‘Inside … Doesn’t Matter’: Responding to American Psycho and Its Dantean Agenda.” In Fear and Learning: Essays on the Pedagogy of Horror, ed. Ahmad, Aalya and Moreland, Sean. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. 2013. 179–99.Google Scholar

Towlson, Jon. The Turn to Gruesomeness in American Horror Films, 1931–1936. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016.Google Scholar

Twomey, John E. “The Citizens’ Committee and Comic-Boook Control: A Study of Extragovernmental Restraint.” Law & Contemporary Problems 20, no. 4 (1955): 621–29.Google Scholar

US Congress, House of Representatives. Report of the Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials, Pursuant to H. Res. 596. 82nd Cong., 1952.Google Scholar

US Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Juvenile Delinquency. 84th Cong., 1st sess., 1955, S. Res. 62.Google Scholar

US Criminal Code §211.Google Scholar

Wallace, Paul S. Regulation of Obscenity: A Compilation of Federal and State Statues and Analysis of Selected Supreme Court Opinions. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 1976.Google Scholar

Wingate, James. Letter to Will H. Hays, October 28, 1936. Production Code Administration Correspondence, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, CA.Google Scholar

Zeigler, Sara. “Book Banning.” In The Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in America, ed. Schultz, David and Vile, John R.. New York: Routledge, 2005.Google Scholar