Mahony Urges Restrictive Code on Films, TV

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony called on the entertainment industry Saturday to consider a new code that would severely restrict the content of motion pictures and television programs by forbidding--among other things--nudity, suggestive dancing, lustful kissing and the portrayal of law enforcement officers dying at the hands of criminals.

Mahony stopped short of calling for mandatory compliance with the code, authored by the Atlanta-based Christian Film and Television Commission. He urged industry executives to voluntarily embrace the guidelines, which one religious leader likened to the Ten Commandments.

“Regrettably, the distinction between outright pornography and many of today’s films and television productions has become blurred,” Mahony told more than 200 people who attended a Public Forum on Pornography, First Amendment Rights and a Family Film Code at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

“The motion picture and television industries must accept their share of the responsibility for (the) tragic results of their exploitation of sex and violence,” Mahony said, his words filling the ballroom where the first Academy Awards were presented in 1929. “These industries cannot hide behind a misplaced cry for ‘freedom of expression.’ ”

Since Tuesday, when Mahony’s support of the proposed production code was first announced, writers and movie executives have spoken out against the idea, defending the movie industry’s rating system. But until Saturday, the specific tenets of the new code had not been made public.

At a news conference, Mahony was joined by Ted Baehr, chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission. Baehr discussed his group’s 19-page revision of the old Hollywood code, often called the Hays Code, which governed the making of movies from 1933 to 1966.

Later, as a dozen pickets protested “censorship” on the sidewalk, Baehr made copies of his proposed code available to reporters. It contains specific prohibitions that, were they strictly applied in Hollywood today, would probably prevent the production of many films similar to the ones in theaters.

Among the images the new code would recommend omitting from movies: any depiction of the use of liquor in American life, unless necessary for plot development; dancing that involved movement of breasts, and “white slavery” or prostitution. The code also would discourage films based on the lives of notorious criminals and would forbid “sex perversion or any inference of it.”

Baehr described the entertainment industry as “ghettoized” and out of touch and said he had modernized and simplified the language of the old code to come up with a “pro-active” guide to help the industry understand Christian values.

Before he distributed copies of the complete code, he summed up its “essence” by referring to a one-page “short form,” which offered general advice to movie makers: Movies should display a respect for the dignity of human life and should omit excessive cruelty to animals.

“How can anybody argue with that?” Baehr asked, adding that his group has gotten a warm reception at the major television networks and movie studios. “We think we have the answer to their financial woes. . . . The truth will set them free, not only from sin and corruption, but from the bondage of losing money at the box office.”

Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, said Saturday that Baehr’s new code still sounded outdated to him.

“We can’t go back 60 years to some kind of do’s and don’ts. It’s an anachronism,” he said, adding that the current rating system gives parents ample information to choose movies.

“I would not try to tell creative people how to write their stories anymore than I would try to instruct Hemingway, Beethoven or Picasso. . . . The best way to expunge a movie from the marketplace is (by) not buying a ticket to see it.”

But Baehr said his code is intended to give voice to a majority of Americans whose views are underrepresented in Hollywood. The entertainment industry employed 91,800 people in California in 1990 and contributes billions of dollars annually to the state’s economy.

Baehr noted that some picketers who paced outside the hotel were members of the Free Speech Legal Defense Fund, which is made up of 100 organizations whose primary business is adult entertainment. “Censorship Is a Dirty Word,” said one of the placards they held.

Since 1966, Baehr said, the church community has “dropped the ball” by not offering its counsel to the entertainment industry. He compared his efforts to those of animal rights advocates or gay and lesbian activists who regularly lobby studio executives to win support.

Mahony also scolded the religious community for not making itself available in recent years to “assist” the entertainment industry. And he seemed to urge filmmakers to highlight the good, not the bad, regardless of whether that image matched reality.

He did not propose, he said, that the new code was “the only possible means to achieving the end of reforming movies and television.” But he said it is incumbent on the industry to realize that “something must be done.”

Opponents of the proposed code said they were alarmed by Mahony’s decision to ally himself with Baehr, the publisher of MovieGuide, a “biblical guide” that rates movies by their “offensive content.” Among the elements MovieGuide includes in that category are homosexuality, Marxism/socialism and satanism.

Mahony is “welcome to offer whatever advice he wishes to anyone who wants to listen,” said Michael Hudson, Western Director of People For the American Way. “But he crosses the line when he joins forces with those who condemn such movies as ‘Ghost,’ ‘Dances With Wolves’ and ‘Misery’ on the grounds that they are somehow ‘anti-Christian.’ ”

Excerpts of New Movie Code

The following are excerpts from a new code, proposed by the Atlanta-based Christian Film and Television Commission, which would govern the content of motion pictures and television programs. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony has urged the entertainment industry to consider voluntarily embracing the code. GENERAL PRINCIPLES

1) No movie shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.

2) Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.

3) Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.

PARTICULAR APPLICATIONS

* The technique of murder must be presented in a way that will not inspire imitation.

* The use of liquor in American life, when not required by the plot or for proper characterization, will not be shown.

* Adultery and illicit sex, sometimes necessary for plot material, must not be explicitly treated or justified or presented attractively. . . . Excessive and lustful kissing, lustful embraces, suggestive postures and gestures are not to be shown.

* Sex perversion or any inference of it is forbidden. . . . White slavery shall not be treated.

* No approval . . . shall be given to the use of the words and phrases in motion pictures including, but not limited to the following:

* God, Lord, Jesus, Christ (unless used reverently), fairy (in a vulgar sense), finger (the), Gawd , goose (in a vulgar sense), nuts (except when meaning crazy), pansy, slut (applied to a woman), SOB, son-of-a , toilet gags, whore.

* Complete nudity is never permitted. This includes nudity in fact or in silhouette.

* No film or episode may throw ridicule on any religious faith.

* Suicide, as a solution of problems occurring in the development of screen drama, is to be discouraged as morally questionable and as bad theater--unless absolutely necessary for the development of the plot.

* There must be no scenes, at any time, showing law-enforcing officers dying at the hands of criminals. This includes private detectives and guards for banks, motor trucks, etc.

* No picture shall be approved dealing with the life of a notorious criminal . . . unless the character shown in the film be punished for crimes shown in the film as committed by him.

* Dances that suggest or represent sexual actions, whether performed solo or with two or more (and) . . . dances with movement of the breasts, excessive body movements while the feet are stationary, violate decency and are wrong.