Southern Censorship against Hollywood in Better Films Committees and Local Censorship Boards: Film Control as a Woman's Political Weapon.

Despite the advent of the Production Code in 1930/1934, which was supposed to empty local censorship boards of their substance, they continued to act, particularly in the Jim Crow South. The Southern censors used their status to fight against film representations that they considered likely to disturb public order. The control of Hollywood cinema became the place where the political opinions of the South were expressed – mostly those of white Southern women. Censorship committees were organized within Women's Clubs, Parent-Teacher Associations, and Better Films Committees (BFC). From Florida to Alabama, the Better Films Committees allowed these women to occupy a space where their political voice could be expressed, opposing any representation they deemed 'obscene'. This article examines the ways in which women made their voices heard, through censorship, in the face of a male-dominated Hollywood industry and Code administration. Censorship of Hollywood films constituted another locus of politics for women in BFCs, even though they did not have access to the vote until the ratification of the 19th Amendment and were very little represented in political institutions. Women censors negotiated constantly with the PCA and Will Hays and saw themselves as the moral center of the United States – which meant that they fought against attempts to push them to the margins of cinema. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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