Susan Courtney’s third chapter, “Coming to Terms with the Production Code," examines how miscegenation was regarded by censors during the pre-code years and attempts to trace the exact origins of the “miscegenation clause” included in the Production Code of 1930. Courtney notes that the clause’s exact wording --  “Miscegenation (sex relationships between white and black races) is forbidden” – originally appeared in the “Don’ts and Be Carefuls” of 1927, and remained relatively un-amended until the code as a whole was gradually abandoned in the 1950s. Courtney posits that there was no single source that led to the inclusion of the miscegenation clause (in other words, there was no specific individual or demographic that found miscegenation particularly objectionable); rather, the clause emerged out of consultations conducted by the Hays Office with local or state censor boards across the country, suggesting a more widespread cultural aversion to the inclusion of interracial mixing in film.

In regards to Bitter Tea, this book supplies a significant contextual understanding of how the interracial themes pivotal to the film’s plot would have been received by censors and audiences alike. Courtney notes that the actual enforcement of the miscegenation clause was very unclear, explaining how a film like Bitter Tea could have easily passed muster with American censors. Because the miscegenation clause only makes mention of “blacks and whites," films involving Asian-American interactions were to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Several movies, including “Congai” and “Shanghai Gesture", were never produced because of the inclusion of Asian-American miscegenation, whereas other films seemed to be judged according to a qualified version of the clause that would permit such relations so long as their interactions were limited to “fantasies and identities." 

            Chon Noriega’s piece chronicles the depiction and reception of homosexuality in Hollywood using film reviews from major periodicals as source material. As the Production Code demanded that "Sex perversion or any inference of it is forbidden," the period of the 1930s and 1940s was characterized by films that had few if any allusions to the existence of homosexuality. Instead, as films were adapted from materials that featured homosexuality as a part of the narrative, the issue was substituted for other social problems. Noriega looks at the three such films in which homosexuality is recast, as the evils of gossip, alcoholism, and anti-semitism, respectively. Reviews at the time rarely mentioned the exchange, or if they did, praised the substitution as making the film better. From this “conspiracy of silence” came acknowledgment of homosexual themes and characters in the 1950s. As long as homosexual characters faced a character arc that was sufficiently tragic, and thus didactic, films were acceptable and homosexuality was no longer explicitly criticized in the reviews. Beginning in the mid-1950s and continuing to the 1960s the dominant perception of homosexuality was no longer that it was criminal, but that it was a psychiatric disease that individuals could be pitied for being afflicted with, but could be cured of.

            Rebel Without a Cause (1955) is often cited as one of the first films to depict a homosexual teenager, Plato, played by Sal Mineo. However, the film initially had more daring content. Upon submission to Joseph Breen’s office, the film was found to have latent homosexual themes that had to be re-edited. The article illuminates the attitudes towards homosexuality at the time of Rebel’s release and the perceived necessity of the changes.

 Smith, Jeffrey A. "Hollywood Theology: The Commodification of Religion in Twentieth-Century Films." Religion and American Culture. 11.2 (Summer, 2001): 191-231.

 
William Peter Blatty’s inspiration for The Exorcist was a Washington Post article about a successful exorcism, in which he has said that it confirmed his belief in God and religion. Presenting this idea to the public in film format was a major challenge, as it can be difficult to discern the religious message among the externalities, such as special effects. In this article, Jeffrey A. Smith documents the evolution of religion in film throughout the twentieth century, presenting examples in a large number of films including The Exorcist.

Smith shows that the treatment of religion in film transitioned from being respectful and institutional until the 1960s, with MPPDA codes prohibiting the use of God’s name in vain, to being about an individual’s quest for religion later in the century. The Cold War era brought about emotional distance in this topic and eventually, God was being personified into people or characters, and humor was used to address religion. The movement from divine spirits to earthly objects translated into The Exorcist with the evil powers possessing a human life. In this sense, The Exorcist was a film that would classify as a transitional movie among religion in film.

Smith notes that The Exorcist could easily have received an X rating or obscenity prosecution, but the notorious parts were in the context of a church ritual. He proceeds to say that the film “avoids opportunities for theological exposition and can be experienced as little more than a horror show” (214). Although moralistic endings can be attached to possession movies, he accuses films of the “satanic power genre” as being little more than a spectacle and an exploitation of religion. A religious view on the film is essential in assessing whether Blatty achieved his goals, and Smith’s evaluation of religion in twentieth-century film puts The Exorcist into a much larger perspective.