#GAY MEN KISSING MOVIES CODE#
In terms of homosexuality, the code marked the end of the "pansy" characters and the beginning of depictions that were more reserved and buried within subtext. The Motion Picture Production Code, also simply known as the Production Code or as the "Hays Code", was established both to curtail additional government censorship and to prevent the loss of revenue from boycotts led by the Catholic Church and fundamentalist Protestant groups, who had wanted to judge the moral impact of Hollywood cinema on the general public. The media publicity surrounding several high-profile celebrity scandals and the danger of church-led boycotts also pressured the leadership within the film industry to establish a national censorship board, which became the Motion Picture Production Code. It was during this same time that the United States Supreme Court ruled that films did not have First Amendment protection, due to the film industry being a business that could be easily used for "evil", and several local governments passed laws restricting the public exhibition of "indecent" or "immoral" films. Also, in a scene previous to the one just mentioned, he flirts (over the top) with another boxer in the dressing room to the extent that the boxer steps behind a curtain to pull off his pants and put on his trunks.
In the boxing scene, Chaplin is between bouts and sitting in the corner of the ring and the ring men are rubbing him on his arms and legs and one of them slips his hand down inside Chaplin's trunks where it is promptly removed by Charlie. Later in the movie, when the same drunk man meets and recognizes Chaplin on the street, he embraces him and kisses him on the mouth (or close to it). He goes home with the drunken rich man and the following morning, he has slept in the same bed as his rich drunk friend. In the 1931 film City Lights, written and directed by Charlie Chaplin, there are several scenes approaching questions in regards to what exactly is going on between Charlie's character and a rich drunken man ( Harry Myers) he meets at a party. With the new influx of these provocative subjects, debates arose regarding the negative effects these films could have on American society. This called for the inclusion of more controversial topics such as prostitution and violence, creating a demand for pansies and their lesbian counterparts to stimulate or shock audiences. Filmmakers produced movies with themes and images that had high shock value to prompt people to return to the theaters.
During the period of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the cinema audience had significantly waned. Marlene Dietrich was the first leading lady to kiss another female on screen in 1930's Morocco.
The first erotic kiss between two members of the same sex in a film was in Cecil B. Lesbian characters did not have a title like gay men, but were still associated with crossdressing, a deep voice, and having a stereotypically masculine job. Gay male characters were depicted as having stereotypically feminine jobs, such as a tailor, hairdresser, or choreographer reinforcing the stereotype that gay men were limited to certain careers. Because of his high-pitched voice and attitude, the pansy easily transitioned from the silent film era to the talking pictures where those characteristics could be taken advantage of. The terms "pansy" and " sissy" became tagged to homosexuality and described "a flowery, fussy, effeminate soul given to limp wrists and mincing steps". Oftentimes male characters intended to be identified as gay were flamboyant, effeminate, humorous characters on film. During the late nineteenth century and into the 1920s and 30s, homosexuality was largely depicted through gender-based conventions and stereotypes.
However, film critic Parker Tyler stated that the scene "shocked audiences with its subversion of conventional male behavior". At the time, the men were not seen as “queer“ or even flamboyant, but merely as acting fancifully. The first notable suggestion of homosexuality on film was in 1895, when two men were shown dancing together in the William Kennedy Dickson motion picture The Dickson Experimental Sound Film, commonly labeled online and in three published books as The Gay Brothers. The Dickson Experimental Sound Film (1895)