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Transgressive Female Characters During the Hays Code Era
How feminist concerns were smuggled into classic movies under the nose of moral guardians.
Warning: Contains some spoilers.
No kissing for more than three seconds. Separate beds for men and women, even if married. The notorious one-foot-on-the-floor rule. All these were precepts of the Hays Code; a morality guideline for what could be depicted onscreen in Hollywood films. The Code was rigidly adhered to from the mid-1930s, until it was gradually eroded in the 1960s. Among other things, the Code insisted on the punishment of criminality, deviancy, and anything deemed indecent. This included “transgressive” female characters who operated outside socially accepted parameters.
Operating under such strict conditions, Hollywood screenwriters and directors nonetheless found ways to creatively subvert the Code. Sometimes this was purely to have fun with criminal protagonists, exploring an iconoclastic, dangerously thrilling world of moral relativism. However, directors would also smuggle in themes of sexuality, equality, and other proto-feminist concerns, providing covert catharsis and raising questions about the patriarchal social structures ultimately defaulted to by the closing credits.
