Law, order, cinema: cinema, sex, censorship

censorship ordinance in Chicago, November 1907, to prevent “the exhibition of obscene and immoral films … of the class commonly shown in mutoscopes, kinetescopes, cinematographs and penny arcades.” Proceedings of the City Council of the City of Chicago (4 November 1907), 3052.

It was the purpose of the law, Justice Cartwright asserted, “to secure decency and morality in the moving picture business, and that purpose falls within the police power.” Notions of “decency,” “immorality,” and “obscenity” were central to this power and though it is “doubtless true,” Cartwright noted, that there are differences as to what is immoral or obscene, “the average person of healthy and wholesome mind knows well enough what ‘immoral’ and ‘obscene’ mean and can intelligently apply the test to any picture presented to him.” Block v. City of Chicago, 87 N.E. 1011, 239 Ill. 251 (1909), 1013, 1015.

“ On account of the low price of admissions, ” Cartwright claimed, nickel theatres are frequented and patronized by a large number of children, as well as by those of limited means who do not attend the productions of plays and dramas given in the regular theatres. The audiences include those classes whose age, education and situation in life especially entitle them to protection against the evil influence of obscene and immoral representations. ” Ibid, 1013.

Lawyers for Mutual: “ They depict dramatizations of standard novels, exhibiting many subjects of scientific interest, the properties of matter, the growth of the various forms of animal and plant life, and explorations and travels; also events of historical and current interest, – the same events which are described in words and by photographs in newspapers, weekly periodicals, magazines, and other publications, of which photographs are promptly secured a few days after the events which they depict happen.” Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, 236 U.S. 230 (1915), 232.

Justice Cartwright: “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 only, but of children, make them the more insidious in corruption by a pretense of worthy purpose. Indeed, we may go beyond that possibility. They take their attraction from the general interest, eager and wholesome it may be, in their subjects, but a prurient interest may be excited and appealed to.” Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, 236 U.S. 230 (1915), 242.

“It cannot be put out of view,” McKenna continued, “that the exhibition of moving pictures is a business, pure and simple, originated and conducted for profit, like other spectacles, not to be regarded, nor intended to be regarded by the Ohio Constitution, we think, as part of the press of the country, or as organs of public opinion. They are mere representations of events, of ideas and sentiments published and known; vivid, useful, and entertaining, no doubt, but, as we have said, capable of evil, having power for it, the greater because of their attractiveness and manner of exhibition” Ibid, 244.