Abstract
In 1953, film director and producer Otto Preminger sought approval from the Production Code Administration (PCA) for the U.S. release of The Moon Is Blue. The film portrayed a young actress in television commercials who resisted the seduction attempts of two men and remained a virgin. Even with such a “moral” ending, however, the movie was denied the PCA’s seal of approval. The Moon Is Blue was deemed inappropriate for display in public movie theaters in the United States. Its sin? The film’s dialogue included the scandalous words “virgin,” “seduce,” “mistress,” and “pregnant.” Otto Preminger and United Artists released the movie anyway, becoming the first major director and studio to snub “The Code” that had controlled the content of motion pictures in the United States for twenty years.
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Literature
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© 2002 Joshua Meyrowitz. All rights reseved. The author wishes to thank Janna Meyrowitz for her research assistance and Renée Carpenter and Peter Schmidt for their comments and suggestions.
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Meyrowitz, J. (2002). Post-Privacy America. In: Weiß, R., Groebel, J. (eds) Privatheit im öffentlichen Raum. Schriftenreihe Medienforschung der Landesanstalt für Rundfunk Nordrhein-Westfalen, vol 43. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-11146-7_4
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