Andi Zeisler presents so many ideas in her book “Feminism and Pop Culture” that are very interesting, but I will focus on the Hays Code. The Hays code was specifically designed to address the representation of humans in general in the movie industry especially women. This code was against screen violence, blasphemy, long screen kisses, inappropriately dresses women, interracial romance, nudity and other sex perversions. This code was enforced for over 3decades. What I find interesting by Hays code is that, when we look back, we see that a lot has changed. IT seems as if everything the media shows now has to do with women’s sexuality. Women are portrayed as objects not as people. Even though back then the code was seen as a bondage to the movie industry and how women were portrayed, I think it was a nice thing to do. If the screens had been kept that way, maybe women wouldn’t be portrayed as they are today. At the time, the code seemed to hurt women’s right but on the other hand, this was code was made to protect our identity as human beings instead of downgrading us as it is in most movies and adverts that air today.
Something that I was not convinced about is the idea of a woman being an “uncontested queen” or to have made a “maternal sacrifice”. Women who had chosen to strive for their success instead of being a housewife were frightened by the idea that they were going against the norms and only bringing ill-luck on themselves. An example is giving of a woman who runs a successful restaurant thereby neglecting her motherhood duties and the consequences of this are her daughter goes from “brattiness to immorality, to, eventually, murder. I am not convinced that things like this ever happened; I feel they just made movies about this to scare women from attaining their rights, or making their choices in life.
Lastly, something that I need clarification about is why divorce rates spiked after WWII. I would expect women to be more considerate with their husbands who are just coming back from a hard life. I just don’t get why divorce rates would spike given the fact that there are less jobs and it would be more reasonable for two people to strive over all odds than being single.
