Betty Boop - Ha! Ha! Ha! (banned for drugs) (1934)
Betty Boop - HaHaHa (1934) (banned for drugs).avi
Código: Seleccionar todo
1934- Ha! Ha! Ha! (Banned For Drugs) [Betty Boop].avi
Tamaño....: 77.1 MB (or 79,027 KB or 80,924,222 bytes)
------------------ Video ------------------
Codec.....: DivX 3 Low-Motion
Duración..: 00:06:29 (11,645 fr)
Resolución: 624x480 (1.30:1) [=13:10]
Bitrate...: 1534 kb/s
FPS.......: 29.970
------------------ Audio ------------------
Codec.....: 0x0055(MP3) ID'd as MPEG-1 Layer 3
Bitrate...: 128 kb/s (64/ch, stereo) CBR
[quote]The Production Code and its Effects
While cartoons were clearly not yet exclusively children's entertainment, there was little doubt that a large proportion of their audience was under the age of twelve. Paul Terry's cartoons were geared almost exclusively towards children, and Disney was building his empire by appealing to the "inner child," stressing wholesomeness and scrubbed-up fairy tales. Leon Schlesinger, the producer of the Warner Brothers cartoons, was quoted as believing that since many cartoon viewers are children, cartoon producers are morally obligated to serve the children's interests. (This quote turns up frequently in Animating Culture although it is conspicuously absent from Of Mice and Magic). It should be obvious to the reader that cartoons were not to be exempt from the Production Code of 1934.
The purpose of the Code was to officially enforce several Hollywood rules ignored by various studios since at least 1930. (The major studios barely gave a previous code lip service). The Code was created to avoid official government censorship and to appease the growing criticism of motion pictures as immoral entertainment. With patronage of theatres declining in the early years of the Great Depression and widespread politically active criticism by the American Catholic Church, there was a real danger that the government would intervene and seize control of the film industry. These were the years of scantily clad chorus girls in Busby Berkeley musicals, of violent crime dramas, of lurid horror films such as Frankenstein and Dracula. Nudity was occasionally glimpsed in films of this era, too, and sexual content was present in some films, especially in those of the frankly liberated Mae West. The decadence of Hollywood was well-known through a series of scandals; perhaps the most notorious involved Fatty Arbuckle.
To silence its critics, the Code conceded to many of their demands. Homosexuality, interracial romance, drug and alcohol abuse, abortion, and nudity were all prohibited. Couples could not be shown as sharing the same bed. Not only were the "Seven Dirty Words" that George Carlin would later joke about prohibited, but so were many others. Violence was toned down. More importantly, no story could appear in which evil and good were confused. Any evil character had to be concocted so there could be no audience sympathy for him, and the evil character must be punished by the end of the film. While not part of the Code, Hollywood publicity would ensure that a more positive public image would be projected of its stars. The Code would remain in place until the 1960s, and ironically, its limitations would help create the framework within which the Golden Era of Hollywood film making would flourish.
The Code had some fine results, albeit indirectly. In place of brash musicals that seemed to exist only to show leggy chorus girls, Fred Astaire starred in a series of beautifully stylized musicals that showcased choreographed dancing and well-crafted songs. Classic novels such as Wuthering Heights and The Wizard of Oz were filmed along with Shakespearean plays in an attempt to show how cultured Hollywood could be. On the one hand, the Code's limitations on sexuality resulted in achingly beautiful romances and on the other, hilarious screwball comedies that threatened to unhinge the Code at any minute. Film noir and more stylish horror films like The Black Cat became adept at suggesting violence that the Code would not openly allow. The gangster films became morality plays in which the mob boss was transformed into a parable of the American Dream gone awry. The downside is that there were whole areas of human experience that were off limits to Hollywood. Hollywood could not create stories in which a lead character agreed to an extramarital affair, or in which drug addiction was realistically portrayed.
The Production Code of 1934 forcibly changed the Betty Boop character, and her new form was saccharine sweet. While the Boop never reached the sauciness that Tex Avery's Red and Who Framed Roger Rabbit's Jessica Rabbit would do later, she was clearly an offender under the new rules. Her sexy teases contained too much promise. Betty's hemlines were lowered to reveal only her calves, and instead of playing dance hall characters, she was typecast as a schoolmarmy maiden aunt. She was paired with a series of cute animal and children, all of whom seemed to be based on a simplification of the Disney formula. This new Betty was doomed to failure. She was an essentially insincere creation meant to appease the code and the Boop became a supporting character in her own cartoons. Grampy, a benevolent elderly gentleman inventor, rightly became the focus in the Betty Boop series. The Fleischer cartoons made under the Betty Boop header were attempts to please the Production Code by aping the Disney style. Note that while the actions prohibited are clearly stated in the Code, the revisions made in the character were strictly the inventions of the Fleischer studios.
Betty's last cartoons for Fleischer were completed in 1939 and from that point on, the Boop vanished from newly produced cartoons. Max and Dave Fleischer had long since refocused their energies into series that the Production Code would find less troublesome. Popeye may have been violent. Nevertheless, the Sailor Man didn't drink or talk suggestively and his girlfriend was unlikely to inspire erotic feelings in moviegoers. The Superman series was an opportunity for Max Fleischer to further experiment with rotoscoping and for Dave to create cartoons in a new narrative format. A series of one-shot cartoons allowed the Fleischer brothers to tinker with color and their 3-D camera work. Betty continued to exist in comic strips for many years (at one point she shared a strip with Felix) but she never returned full-time to film.
Betty Boop and the Production Code of 1934[/quote]
Me parece que éste capítulo no ha salido todavía publicado por el foro, claro que con el actual estado del "buscador" vete tú a saber. En todo caso, puede servir como recordatorio de un excelente capítulo de la serie de Betty Boop y, a su vez, como crítica de la democracia americana; siempre politológicamente hablando, claro.