FROM MUTUAL TO BURSTYN: AN EVOLUTION OF FILM REGULATION AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT IN FILM BUSINESS

Abstract

Between the establishment of the American film industry in the 1900s and the post-Classical Hollywood period of the 1960s, case law directing the regulation of motion pictures underwent transformative changes. Regulation of films during this period was affected by a variety of historical factors, and can be characterized as social, governmental, or political censorship. These elements contributing to censorship were enabled by the early classification of films as business rather than art and thus unqualified for First Amendment free speech protections. This designation enabled more stringent film regulations and lent power to these social, governmental, and political exertions of control over the exhibition of pictures. This thesis traces the evolution of film regulation and censorship, and examines how those various factors endowed censorship systems with the ability to reinforce legal censorship in the film industry until films were granted free speech protections by the Supreme Court in 1952. The analysis examines how each social, political, and governmental censorship factor was enabled by the legal precedent surrounding film regulation, how the industry and legal attitudes evolved to eventually outgrow this precedent, and how residual elements of old restrictions still affect parts of film exhibition today.