ornamental line

Gaming the Gaze

"these innocent victims of a man's avarice"
Dorothy Arzner's Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)


Points for Reflection

The Motion Picture Production Code, or "Hays Code" (1930-68)

  1. Why does the Code attempt to encourage, and what discourage?
  2. Does the Code assert that motion pictures (i.e. films) function primarily as entertainment, or as teaching tools?
  3. Does the Code explicitly identify its intended audience as citizens of the U.S.A. only, or the world at large?
  4. How does the Code appear to define, implicitly, concepts like "sin" and "natural"?
  5. Does the Code promote any particular postures towards new and evolving filmmaking technologies?
  6. What attitude does the Code adopt towards the timestream? Does it, that is, privilege the past over the present, or vice versa?
  7. How would you, today, define "correct standards of life"? What behaviors would fall outside this domain?
  8. Does the Code concern itself with murder, theft, revenge, brutal killings, and child trafficking?
  9. What posture does the Code adopt towards the representation on screen of firearm usage, illegal drug traffic, the consumption of liquor, and sexual scenes?
  10. What subjects does the Code encourage filmmakers to treat "within the careful limits of good taste," and what does it proscribe altogether?


a painting of a desert scape with blue sky and clouds in the top half and tan and red rocks on the bottom half. there is an abandoned old car in the bottom right overgrown with moss and plants.
Untitled (1937)
Salvador Dalí



Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu