Final Paper: In-Class Discussion

My in-class discussion was with Michelle. We discussed each other’s thesis and she told me that I should combine my thoughts to make one complete thesis instead of having to different veiws in seperate paragraphs. Michelle also advised me that I could use more quotes and examples of how gangster films are unsafe in my paper. The advice I gave to her were mostly about her grammatical errors. Her paper had strong statistical information in it and I couldn’t help but agree with her thesis.

Revised Plan-Michelle P

I was originally going to write about Mae West’s overall career and how it was ultimately destroyed by the Production Code.  However, due to timing issues, I have now chosen to narrow my topic to the aspects that made West’s films so controversial.  The main movies I will be focusing on are Night After Night (1932), I’m No Angel (1933), and My Little Chickadee (1940).  After analzying the films, I will provide arguments both in favor and against the themes in Mae’s films.  My group agreed that this was a nice topic.

Minow-Michelle P

In these pages, Minow and Lamay discuss the idea of broadcasters being protected by the First Amendment.   The authors argue against major broadcasting networks such as the Big 3-CBS, ABC, and NBC which make “25 billion dollars a year, of which 9 billion go toward advertising.”  Minow and Lamay claim that the Supreme Court should apply the First Amendment to children before broadcasters, as a way to protect children from inappropriate shows on television and the advertising that surrounds the show’s popularity. I disagree with this idea.  I think broadcasting networks should be protected by the First Amendment just as much as children should.  While these networks are certainly a media source, they are also corporations-businesses.  It’s really expensive and risky to produce and air television shows (often times it can be a bigger debt than films) so networks always have to promote their product and try to generate revenue from their programming.   If they’re going to spend that much money their rights should be protected. 

Response to Introductory Paragraph #1

Thesis: “The film Scarface, which presents obvious and hidden immoral and extreme violence contents is a shocking and dangerous film to be presented to the general public, which includes children.”

I feel that the thesis of this introductory paragraph is unclear because it is hard to read and difficult to understand because of all the different clauses. The thesis also does not explain why film is harmful to children in the sentence. Overall the paragraph makes good points but I feel the thesis would be better, if it were written as follows:

In the 1930s, the National Board of Review allowed many extremely violent films to be seen by the public which endangered the lives of children because children are more impressionable which causes them to learn to use violence to take care of problems, instead of self control.

Culture Shock (Jon M)

The two ways Denby puts forward for looking at film is that movies should be complex in order to show what life is really like. While another view is that film should teach a moral lesson about whats right. I personally think that the best method to take in movies is the first approach since people are see and hear about things like violence, murder, etc all the time and would be used to seeing it. While it’s good to see criminals punished it’s equally useful to see how life really works rather then simply showing everything perfect and without any complexity.

Denby’s (Denis Baya)

Making films are supposed to teach lessons  instead 0f focusing on make a bad film.Denby was referring to the immoral behaviors that are shown in films that keep the crowd coming back for more.  He seemed to of keept a one side to it. The films that are shown showing immoral beahvior teaches people a moral lesson in a way. The antagonist is teaching people who they should not be.  But Denby thinks the immoral behaviors that films produce are not necessary cause people by nature know what is right and wrong.  Denby feels like they are teaching kids the wrong things.

Mutual Film Corp.

In the beginning of the court case, there is a description of how the film is distributed.  The Mutual Film Company argued that the business is in Ohio, so it is not interstate commerce. 

The Ohio law restrained trade by forcing the Mutual Film Company to pay a license fee.  The Mutual Film Company claimed that the law was a “clear violation of the free speech provisions of…Ohio Constitutions (Black, 16).”

The Mutual Film Company argued that they should be seen as “circulating libraries (Black, 16).”

Mutual argued that the “statute violates the freedom of speech and publication guaranteed by the Ohio Constitution…”  In response, the court argued that “Their power of amusement, and it may be, education, the audiences they assemble, not of women alone nor of men alone, but together, not of adults, but of children, make them the more insidious in corruption by a pretense of worthy purpose or if they should degenerate from worthy purpose.”  In other words, the audience at the theatres thought they were at the theatre to be educated/ amused, but the true purpose of the film-makers was to corrupt the audience- children, men, and women alike. 

The Supreme Court rejected the arguments of Mutual Film Company.  Jurists even described the movies as “evil (Black, 17).”  The Court stated that the “…movies communicated more effectively and seductively than any [other] communication (Black, 17).”

According to the court, “The first impulse of the mind is to reject the contention.”  This is not technical reasoning from the jury.  The court made their decisions based on shared beliefs. 

            The court thought that the film-makers were basically just pretending that the films were educational and amusing, but this is not the true purpose.  Their argument was that the decisions that they were making were not unconstitutional because the film could be harmful to the audience. 

            The court’s decision was based on the fact that they had shared beliefs.  However, it was not a good reason to make the decision, and they shouldn’t have ended the case at this point.  Of course, if this court case occurred today, there would be more reasonable factors to take into considerations in order to make the final court decision.   

Hay’s Code-Individual responses(Denis Baya)

Hay’s code goes into detail about how to handle everything including reasons to support to preamble code, reasons supporting the general principles, crimes against the law, religion, vulgarity, titles, sin and evil, etc… It seems that the code is more towards restricting films from any possibility of affecting the public. 

 Hay’s Code addresses the term sin, which really caught my attention. Sins do have the competence to stimulate opinions in the audience according to each individuals request to it. Sins are natural of human, so to portray any image of them would mean portraying their flaws or sins at some point because no one is perfect. Without the attraction element from sin, films would be boring and not worthless to watch. Regarding distinctions between films for the young and those for a mature audience, we all think it is necessary, because even today, movies are rated to protect the young audience from watching immoral images that might inspire them to do the same false action. About crime, there is an agreement in the group that crimes being showed in films could possibly inspire others to be criminals. At the same time, however, not many are so easily affected that they would actually do it. 

Regarding the code’s effort to protect the moral fabric of our society. With that being said, it is important to understand that American society in the 1920’s was far different than America today. Most Americans lived in rural areas, and most did not attend college, because they were to poor.  With that, or population was not an educated, sophisticated audience.  I believe that the code was an important step in the evolution of our cultural history.

The Three Endings of Scarface-Lindsay. C

 

 

In response to the three endings of the film Scarface, “the script”, “the coward runs” and “the hanging”, I felt that the ending from the original script, presented the most believable outcome for the character, Tony Camonte.  It was in this ending in which Tony was determined to fight off the police until the moment of his death. I feel this ending was stronger than the other two because, after every other scene showed Tony as a fearless gangster, it was a very far-fetched way to end the film by having him become a coward.

According to Black, the original script was never filmed because it “condemned American society for tolerating the existence of gangsters”(Black.125) However in 1983, the film was remade with a modern day twist containing an ending very similar to the script from 1932. And from that ending came one of the most famous lines in cinema history which was when Tony Montana said ” Say hello to my little friend,” the friend being his larger than life machine gun.

If the script ending from 1932 had been filmed, I feel that in comparison to the other two endings, Tony Camonte’s death would have been somewhat “glorified.” I feel this way because to me, it is more heroic to be fearless and die a fighter, than to run like a coward trying to escape an inevitable fate.  Even though both endings eventually had him become a coward, my view of Camonte and the government was slightly different depending on the particular version I saw.

One of the biggest differences I felt changed the way I viewed Camonte was that in the first filmed ending, up until the point when his sister Cesca is killed, there was more of an emphasis put on Tony trying to impress his sister by shooting at the police and being brave. Where as, in the ending where Tony is tried for murder and sentenced to death by hanging, there is less focus on gangster behavior and more focus on Tony’s guilt, punishment and death.

  Another difference was that in the ending with the hanging, a judge tries to send a message to the audience about how gangsters like Tony are bad people and do not deserve to live. Therefore my view of the government and their view of criminals like “Tony” was different depending on which ending I saw. Overall, I think the government sent the same message in both endings, but it was just more vivid in the ending with the hanging.  Which was it is ok for the government to murder in movies but not gangsters.   

Introduction StevenW

My name is Steven. I have lived in the Fairfax area my whole life. I am currently a freshman and am fortunate enough to play on the soccer team here at Mason. I am majoring in marketing and receiving a minor in sports management. I am very laid back have many areas of interest. Examples include sports, working out, cars, movies, and comedy.