Pieces of Hate; And Other Enthusiasms

by Heywood Broun

Here I take the liberty of interrupting for a moment to protest that the board has framed this rule upon the seeming assumption that to see murders, robberies, and the rest is to wish at once to emulate the criminals. This theory is in need of proving. "A good detective story" is the traditional relaxation of all men high in power in times of stress, but it is not recorded of Roosevelt, Wilson, Secretary of State Hughes, Lloyd George, nor of any of the other noted devotees of criminal literature that he attempted to put into practice any of the things of which he read. But to get on with the story:

"(6) Gruesome and unduly distressing scenes will be disapproved. These include shooting, stabbing, profuse bleeding, prolonged views of men dying and of corpses, lashing and whipping and other torture scenes, hangings, lynchings, electrocutions, surgical operations, and views of persons in delirium or insane."

Here, of course, a great deal is left to the discretion of the censors. Just what is "gruesome and unduly distressing"? This, I fancy, must depend upon the state of the censor's digestion. To a vegetarian censor it might be nothing more than a close-up of a beefsteak dinner. To a man living in the city which supports the Athletics and the Phillies a mere flash of a baseball game might be construed as "gruesome and unduly distressing."

This is another of the rules which puts Shakespeare in his place, sweeping out, as it does, both Lear and Ophelia. And possibly Hamlet. Was Hamlet mad? The Pennsylvania censors will have to take that question up in a serious way sooner or later.

"(7) Studio and other scenes, in which the human form is shown in the nude, or the body is unduly exposed, will be disapproved."

This fails to state whether the prohibition includes the reproduction of statues shown publicly and familiarly to all comers in our museums.

Prohibition No. 8, which deals with eugenics, birth control and similar subjects, may be passed without comment, as it refers rather to news than to feature pictures.

Prohibition No. 9 covers a wide field:

"Stories or scenes holding up to ridicule and reproach races, classes, or other social groups, as well as the irreverent and sacrilegious treatment of religious bodies or other things held to be sacred, will be disapproved."

Here we have still another rule which might be invoked against Hamlet's coming to the screen, since the chance remark, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," might logically be held to be offensive to Scandinavians. "The Merchant of Venice," of course, would have no chance, not only as anti-Semitic propaganda, but because it holds up money lenders, a well-known social group, to ridicule.