The content streaming from Hollywood has, no doubt, devolved in recent decades, with sex, violence and racy content increasingly permeating our entertainment.
But did you know there was once a time in the not so distant past when movie studios made a pointed effort to self-censor, rejecting content seen as too sexual, violent or immoral?
The roots of self-censorship were set in the 1920s when feature films were still in their infancy. At the time, actors and performers were reportedly getting quite unruly, with their morally bankrupt behaviors raising more than a few eyebrows.
In real-life scenes that mirror some of what we’ve seen happen in Hollywood in recent decades, stars were overdosing, comic Fatty Arbuckle went on trial for alleged manslaughter over the case of a dead actress, and actress Mary Pickford reportedly got divorced to marry fellow actor Douglas Fairbanks, as NPR reported.
Such incidents made religious leaders nervous, leaving them looking for ways to halt the negative influence that was pouring down from Tinseltown into mainstream culture. Those fears manifested themselves in the form of state censorship boards, which essentially gave the government the right to crack down on movie content.
