5 ms·

American expectations of censorship are so interesting, as the whole society was formed by film and radio's attempts to market to the whole country at once, spe

American expectations of censorship are so interesting, as the whole society was formed by film and radio's attempts to market to the whole country at once, specifically restrictive middle America. Its clearer now that broadcasting hot spots of New York City and Los Angeles were not prudish about content in the early 20th century, while the Oklahoma's of the nation only wanted fully clothed people, speaking very cordial language, as long as all the actors were white or portrayed segregated culture. Strange to think how that influenced a dynasty of casting decisions still seen today.

wpietri 7y ago
Yeah, I think it's interesting how we didn't have nearly as much formal government censorship, but that commercial interests converged on the same sorts of outcomes. And yes, I think the history is especially interesting around visible versus invisible minorities. Plenty of people in the Hollywood of old were GLBTQ and got away with it because they could hide it. But that didn't work for racial bias.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  There was rampant government censorship, it was at the state level all because the Supreme Court said motion pictures weren't protected by the 1st amendment in 1910, reversing itself in 1950s after the damage was done and culture wide censorship was expected by American families. Circumstances like this are why industries don't lay off on lobbying. To add to your second point, a lot of European and Middle Eastern people changed their names to blend into the white majority power as their subgroup was not seen favorably for most of the 20th century and were many times not considered to be part of an amorphous “white” group which meant worse treatment in jobs housing credit and court rulings, this issue and distinction has mostly evaporated with "white" being expanded and reduced to skin tones in the later 20th century in the US with there very little interest or cognizance of pre-US heritage. This just being another example how invisible minorities and ability to "pass" to attain privileges, where people with different skin tones and visible phenotypes simply could not change those things and discovered that people with other similar phenotypes experienced surprisingly similar outcomes.

wpietri 7y ago

Yeah, I think it's interesting how we didn't have nearly as much formal government censorship, but that commercial interests converged on the same sorts of outcomes. And yes, I think the history is especially interesting around visible versus invisible minorities. Plenty of people in the Hollywood of old were GLBTQ and got away with it because they could hide it. But that didn't work for racial bias.

rolltiide 7y ago
There was rampant government censorship, it was at the state level all because the Supreme Court said motion pictures weren't protected by the 1st amendment in 1910, reversing itself in 1950s after the damage was done and culture wide censorship was expected by American families. Circumstances like this are why industries don't lay off on lobbying. To add to your second point, a lot of European and Middle Eastern people changed their names to blend into the white majority power as their subgroup was not seen favorably for most of the 20th century and were many times not considered to be part of an amorphous “white” group which meant worse treatment in jobs housing credit and court rulings, this issue and distinction has mostly evaporated with "white" being expanded and reduced to skin tones in the later 20th century in the US with there very little interest or cognizance of pre-US heritage. This just being another example how invisible minorities and ability to "pass" to attain privileges, where people with different skin tones and visible phenotypes simply could not change those things and discovered that people with other similar phenotypes experienced surprisingly similar outcomes.