What shocked the censors! (1933)

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Categorical description of deletions enforced by the Division of Motion Pictures of the New York Department of Education for the fifteen month period beginning January 1, 1932 and ending March 31, 1933. Censorship Categories Applied in connection with "feature" films Applied in with connection shorts" Totals Dialogue Scene Dialogue Scene Sex: Sex, general Nudity Language Slang 667 00 15 19 308 134 9 00 11 00 00 1 24 75 3 00 1010 209 27 20 Crime: Technique Reward References Poison 96 42 13 00 123 80 00 24 1 7 1 0 28 8 00 17 248 137 14 14 Violence: Human Animals 139 00 494 65 22 00 46 00 701 65 Government: United States Foreign 72 19 50 00 1 00 00 00 123 19 Religion: 25 1 00 00 26 Unclassified: 15 4 10 00 29 Totals: 1122 1292 54 201 2669 For those who are statistically-minded, the above chart may be further summarized by stating that approximately 44% of the censor's deletions have to do with Sex, 16% with Crime, 29% with Violence, 5% with Government, and 3% with Religion. These five categories of the censors need now to be re-interpreted in terms of their presumed effect upon public behavior. The daily press, patently, publishes items concerning these subjects, since our conception of "news" centers largely at these points. But the censors assume that these are the areas of primary moral danger. We may allow them to speak for themselves in terms of formal language: "No motion picture will be licensed or a permit granted for its exhibition within the State of New York, which may be classified, or any part thereof, as obscene, indecent, immoral, inhuman, sacrilegious, or which is of such character that its exhibition would tend to corrupt morals or incite to crime." * The first five terms of this rule are presumed to be objective standards according to which works of art or dramatic exhibitions may be judged; the last Regents Rules 244, based upon the Education Law, Chapter 153, Section 1082.