Keith's Weblog

The Last and Final Frontier of an Annotated Bibliography

kstahoe — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:55:24 +0000

Finding web pages that related to my topic was extremely easy. First off, after all this research, I have become much more familiar with what I have been looking for. The internet has become a valuable tool in finding all other sorts of materials on my topic. I have been looking for information, on the history of censorship in film. So when it came to looking for web pages I was ready. I started my search using Google which is the best search engine known to man. I first looked for: censorship in film us. I then began to read through the results to see if each site may have something relevant to my topic. If it may be possible, I would go to the site to see what it was all about. I then realized that I was looking for not just articles, but a whole site that would have information about my topic, not just an article. For that reason, I knew that I would have to perform an advanced search as well to see if any sites had the .org I did an advanced search with the search string being: film history censorship site:.org. This is where I found my first site. Although, I was not looking for just an article, I would have to read where the site had a page that was specific to my needs. After looking through the rest of the possible sites, I decided to eliminate the .org from my search. This is where I found the second site.

1. Classic Movies. 28 Nov. 2008. Lang Design. 28 Nov. 2008 .

Brad Lang is the author of this site, and has had a long history in writing. He has been the guide for About.com as an avid movie fan. He has published this article for other classic movies fans to gain information about films from the 30’s to the 60’s.

This web site has information all about films from the previously stated eras. It has The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 in its entirety. There is also an article titled “Censorship in the Movies.” It is a brief description of the Hays Code, and has great links to other sites regarding the Code.

This site is very easy to navigate through, and it has the full version of the first “Production Code.’’ It also has a brief summary of the censorship in movies with links to other areas of interest like gay films, and the crackdown on morality in 1934.

I would have to say that this is a great site for gaining information regarding film from the thirties. Each page also has links to other pages to give the inquirer more information on the topic.

2. The Picture Show Man. 2007. Key Light Enterprises, LLC. 28 Nov. 2008. .

The Picture Show Man does not exactly have an author, but they are a flagship of Key Light Enterprises, LLC. The purpose of these two companies is to gather and disseminate information on topics of their interest to as many people as possible. The Picture Show Man is about the history of film.

The great thing about this site is that it gives an extremely detailed description of the history of film censorship. It goes as far as to talk about issues within specific films, and the challenges the Hays Office faced.

Within the site, there is an article relating to the history of movie censorship. The timeline starts in 1909 with The New York Board of Motion Picture Censorship, and ends in 1968 with the formation of the MPAA and their rating system.

This site is a plethora of knowledge pertaining to film. Not only does it have this information, but it also links the reader to other sites, books, and articles pertaining to your desired area of interest relating to film.

Blog Response to Lessig

kstahoe — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:55:59 +0000

This article is about how there can be issues with copyrighted materials. Jon Else was making a documentary, and he had a shot if some students that were backstage at a playing checkers and The Simpsons was on the television in the background. He contacted many people including Fox to get permission for a 4 second snippet that was playing in the background. Fox wanted $10,000 for permission. This was well above budget, and had to be removed. The biggest thing that I learned is that “Corporate” is waaaaaaaaay to greedy. It is unbelievable that such a miniscule thing can become such an issue. In regards to the class, I think that this article ties in with copyright infringement, and the fair use doctrine. Honestly, I cannot think of anything about this article that relates to my life, however, I do not know where life will take me. I will keep my eyes open. From this assigned reading, I have gone over copyright infringement and the Fair use doctrine in my Business Law class. Again, the only time that I can think of this material is if I were to become an academic.

Annotated Bib Part C.

kstahoe — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 03:20:12 +0000

Somehow or someway, finding scholarly articles was much easier than finding the popular articles for my topic. As for the search performed to find my articles, I started out identically to my previous searches for information on my topic. When it came to finding my popular articles, I had to go much more in depth, and it was much more time consuming. Many articles that came up were just too irrelevant. I tried searches for (Jack Valenti) and (Production Code*), and that did not work well at all, I attempted to utilize our databases for film, and still had no luck. The problem that I ran into there was that none of the documents that would have been relevant were not full articles. Finally, I ended up using EBSCOhost, and searching through all of the databases. After I had my search in, I refined it to only with full text, and started searching. There were way too many relevant documents, so U had to play with my search. Finally, I ended up with (mpaa or Motion picture) and (rating system) for the article by Chris Roth, and (rating and jack valenti) for my article by Jack Valenti. The reason I came up with these possible search strings was due to reading through a plethora of articles, and getting a little more familiar with censorship in Hollywood.

Weinberger, Stephen. “Joe Breen’s Oscar.” Film History 17.4 (2005): 380-391. Academic Search Premier. Randall Lib. Wilmington, NC. 10 Nov. 2008 .

Stephen Weinberger is a professor of history and film studies at Dickinson College. He has written an article on Joe Breen, and his work in Hollywood with Will Hays and the Production Code Administration.

The article talks about Joe Breen’s Oscar, and the work he did to censor films in the thirties through the fifties. It gives specific examples of how he enforced the Production Code, and how at many points, he would go beyond what the code said. Mr. Breen “was the code,” and no one was to argue with him.

This article is a goes into great detail to give specific examples and situations of the intervention on Joe Breen. As an example, the article summarizes a memo from Joe Breen in regards to A Streetcar Named Desire. The issues that he pointed out in the film included: homosexuality, rape, suicide, and nymphomania. There were significant changes made to the film before it was released to the public.

This article relates to my topic well because not only does it mention the Production Code Administration, but it goes into depth on what the administration did to change films as we know it today. It also spans over a period of over twenty years, and the how the administration evolved.

Simmons, Jerold. “The Production Code and the Profanity Amendment of 1954.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 25.2 (1997): 76-83. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Randall Lib. Wilmington, NC. 10 Nov. 2008 .

Jerold Simmons is a professor of history at the University of Nebraska. He has written this article to talk about the amendment of the Production Code in the fifties after Joseph Breen resigned as the head of the Production Code Administration.

This article is surprising in one aspect. Although it is separate from the purpose of the article, it is interesting to see a major error that not only made it past peer review, but also editors. Mr. Simmons consistently refers to Joseph Breen as green. Aside from that issue, this article is about how a few major production companies stepped away from the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. It was a significant point for the PCA that caused a major change in censorship rules and the “Production Code.”

This relates to my topic on the history of film censorship because it is about the first changes that were made to the Production Code to make the rules of certain language uses current with the times.

Valenti, Jack. “Ratings Born of Conflict.” Variety 4 Dec. 2006: 6,82. Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text. Randall Lib. Wilmington, NC. 11 Nov. 2008 .

Jack Valenti served as the founder of the MPAA and the rating system up until 2004. He wrote this article to discuss the forming of the MPAA.

This guest column is an article from the man that created the rating system that we know of in film today. Within his article, Mr. Valenti discusses why he made the decisions that he did for his rating system, and how he made it all work for the film industry. It discusses the reasons that the PCA needed to go, and why the MPAA was necessary.

I like the fact that this article is from the creator of the rating system, and think that it is critical for finding information about the why’s and how’s of the MPAA rating system. The author even writes about the social unrest that was taking place in America at the time, and how it was also a factor into the rating system. He very briefly and simply sums up a plethora of information in just a few paragraphs.

This article relates to my topic of censorship in film by moving beyond the Hays office and the Production Code Administration into more recent times.

Roth, Chris. “Three Decades of Film Censorship…Right Before Your Eyes.” Humanist Jan/Feb 2000: 9-14. Academic Search Premier. Randall Lib. Wilmington, NC. 11 Nov. 2008 .

Chris Roth is a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union chapter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His article is to give the reader information about the rating system, and the history of censorship in film.

This article is about thirty years of film censorship. Not only does it go into detail about the rating system and how it works, but it also covers issues such as the economics of the movie industry, and even how it affects consumers at home. The main purpose of this article is to change ideas about the NC-17 rating, and uses examples of films and directors that have either changed films for a lower rating to avoid having the NC-17 stigma placed on their film.

Although this article is opinionated, and I prefer not to use documents of this type, I think that it gives solid historical information. It also brings up the topic of NC-17 rating, and that is one major part of censorship in films that I have not yet covered.

October Evaluation

kstahoe — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:50:38 +0000

I can’t exactly critique a specific class from October, but there is an issue I saw with the class that ties into a lesson that we had covered in September. During that month, we learned about Boolean operators and truncation. From where we went in October by covering databases, I feel that the class should have covered Booleans and truncation then. It just doesn’t seem to fit. The more I thought about it, I can only assume that this topic was broken up to familiarize the class with how to perform searches. Aside from that issue, I cannot think of anything that was imperfect or in the wrong place.

10/27 Stebbins and using databases

kstahoe — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:09:53 +0000

This article by Stebbins is about different ways of searching databases. It covers things such as Boolean operators and truncation. It then addresses what one should do if they were to come up with too many results. Not only that, but it tells the reader about how you can limit your results for different things that you are looking for. Limit one’s search could be limiting to a specific language or limiting the dates. In all honesty, I think that this reading assignment was a little late for its time in class. We have already covered different ways of searching databases, and given my other classes; I have become quite familiar with performing searches in databases. This assignment is related to where we are in class though. Currently we are creating presentations for databases, and it will refresh some students’ memories for our project. Luckily, I have been able to apply this in the current semester. Recently, I had to write a paper that required me to find a specific scholarly article. The article that I had to find dealt with finding a reasonable marketability discount. It isn’t exactly a commonly searched topic. I had to search through many different databases, and mess with truncation and Boolean operators. The other part about the search was that it had to be before Jan. 1, 2007.

Searching and Using Databases

kstahoe — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:08:41 +0000

I would have to say that the most important thing that I have learned from searching databases is to not forget about “stop words.” Recently I have had to search for a very specific scholarly journal and law case. It seemed as if was damn near impossible to find what I was looking for. I talked to a few librarians, and they taught me a whole lot about how to use different databases and different techniques to search them. So sadly, what we have covered over the last few days, I was ahead of the game. Phrase searches are something that I have been using for years, and they can be a valuable tool when you are looking for something very specific. I did also learn today about using the near search within the proximity search. Wow is that cool! There’s no way I can forget that one.

Responses for Altman and Revkin

kstahoe — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:16:02 +0000

Both of these assigned readings have striking similarities, in my opinion. I would prefer to show my viewpoint once I am done analyzing each article individually.

As for the Altman article, it writes about how medical science uses peer review, and how there are discrepancies to this system. This article also talks about how some of these journals can get rejected by one certain journal, but the authors will just send their journal to another medical journal, and it will be published. The assigned reading also covers issues of how the peer review system works, and how it only reviews the summary and fails to look at the “meat and potatoes” of their findings. I would have to say that the biggest thing that I learned from this reading assignment was that even respected professionals such as doctors are willing to steal other people’s work. I had thought that such a respected profession would not have issues like plagiarism. This article is relevant to information that we have covered in class in a few ways. First off, it is dealing with scholarly articles, and how they are peer reviewed. Furthermore, it covers issues such as plagiarism. I can apply this article to my life, but I do not think that it is new information to me. I have been raised, and have the premonition that honesty is the best policy. No matter what the cost is, it is always better to be upfront in anything that you encounter in life. A new piece of information that can be taken away from this reading assignment is even scholarly articles may not be completely true or correct. This article does relate to things that we have covered in class, however, I feel that earlier in this post I have covered that information. I have not fully been able to apply this to other classes quite yet, but I am eager to use this information in the future.

The Revkin article is about a similar issue covered in the Altman article, but it takes a slightly different turn at the outset. It does cover issues that stem from scientific research and journals, but these issues don’t deal with the peer review system. It covers how research and journals get skewed on their way through the pipeline to the general public. It writes about how the news and media cuts out vital information from this information and forms their own opinions and the public gets a distorted view of this information. It is difficult to say whether or not I have learned anything from this information, but it has piqued my interest in finding out about global warming and glaciers. I have always known that the media, especially in America, isn’t of the same quality that it once was. Not only that, but this information is to be taken with a grain of salt. Again, like the Altman article, this reading assignment relates to what we recently covered in class about scholarly articles. It seems that articles like this tend to be overlooked, and I had never known how vital they are to our society. As a student, as I have stated before, this has enlightened me about scholarly articles. When I have a topic that I need or want to know more about, I should not overlook information that experts in the field have written or talked about. It is something that I had never thought of before. Aside from how important scholarly articles are, I do not see it relating to anything else that we have covered in class or other classes for me. I may be overlooking something, but after pondering it for awhile, I may have overlooked something.

Each of these articles has their own value, but they both cover issues that are related to scholarly journals. Also, they both deal with science and research. I also see that each of these articles have a strong opinion about journals. They discount that there has been a great deal of accurate and worthy information that has been published. Nothing in this world is perfect, and there will always be room for improvement, but I would have to say that most journals do have serious credibility.

Academic vs. Popular

kstahoe — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:11:56 +0000

Sometimes it can be difficult to decipher whether or not, and article is popular or scholarly. One thing to look at for scholarly articles is if they are peer reviewed. Also, one must consider the frequency of publication. If it is published more than ten times a year, the chances are that it is popular. Also, look for the publisher. It could be a university, so you can look more into it. Who is the author, what is the language used, and are there references? You will also notice, that on scholarly articles, that there are works sited or references, and there is also an abstract about what the article is saying.

Annotated Bibliography

kstahoe — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:07:20 +0000

Process

To narrow down my topic, I first thought of what may interest me. Realizing that I love film, and can relate to it, I decided to find out the history of the censorship of film.

Main Goal

The main question that I have to answer is what shaped the censorship of film, and what was done to ensure that it was being censored properly?

Finding Books

The first thing I did to find my books was to research the internet for information on my topic. I found information on Will Hays, and another piece of information about a “Production Code.” After finding those two important pieces, I went onto the library’s website to find books about Will Hays and the Production Code. With an advanced search, I searched: (Will Hays) or (production code) or (censorship) and (Film) or (Hollywood) and (history). This search was extremely broad, and needed to be whittled down. From the information I had, I performed a few other searches, and finally ended up with a search for: (Will Hays) or (production code). This search ended up with 13 possibilities. As I began going through the possible books to research, I looked especially at the call numbers and what the subject was. After finding myself within the LOC of PN1995, I decided to look at what other books were near it on the shelf according to the website. I looked at the titles to see if they may possibly cover my research topic. From the few books that piqued my interest, I decided to look at the reviews on amazon.com. After whittling down my books that could be possible resources, I decided to go to the shelf. When I got there, I found the three books that would be possible resources, and looked at what other books were near them on the shelf to read the bios or snippets of information from the text. I came up with three possible books. I chose three books to pull from. I checked them out and took them home. My decision of books will be covered in the next section.

Books

1. Leff, Leonard J. and Jerold L. Simmons. The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, censorship, and the Production Code. 2^nd ed. Lexington, Ky.: The UP of Kentucky, 2001.

2. Bernstein, Matthew, et al. Controlling Hollywood: Censorship and Regulation in the Studio Era. Ed. Mathew Bernstein. Piscataway, NJ.: Rutgers U, 1999.

The Dame in the Kimono

This book has two authors. One is a Professor of English at Oklahoma State, and the other is a professor of history at the University of Nebraska. Each author has written many articles about the history of film and censorship.

This book is about the establishment of the Production Code Administration, and it is about what each director did to shape the administration.

This book gives specific examples as to why certain rules were put in place for film, and what each officer of the administration did to ensure that certain changes took place.

This book relates to my topic by describing what happened during the time of the PCA.

Controlling Hollywood

The Editor/Author is a professor of Film studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He has written two books, and has been published in many other journals and periodicals.

This book is about how censorship was first formed in film. It starts from 1915 and ends in with a description about the forming of the Motion Picture Association of America.

This book covers the early establishment of the Will Hays office, and why the Hollywood studios decided to have self regulation before the forming of the MPAA. It backs up its evidence by giving examples of certain films and how politicians, lawmakers, and religious figureheads pointed out the need for regulation.

This book relates to my topic by giving historical evidence of the actual first forming of censorship, and the Hollywood Production Code.

Plagiarism-Stebbins

kstahoe — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 21:16:30 +0000

This excerpt from the, “The Student Guide to Reasearch in the Digital,” age covers the issue of plagiarism. It gives examples of plagiarism, and instances in the professional world where it has had significant impacts. It tells the reader about what different kinds of plagiarism there are. This read taught me about paraphrasing being a form of plagiarism. It is one aspect that can become very touchy, and I had never seen certain forms of it as plagiarism. It is still a little confusing, but I am going to have to spend more time considering how I write my papers. This relates to this class on research, you MUST cite your sources properly, and it is an issue that we all tend to overlook at times. This reading can apply to my life as a whole; whether it is in writing a research paper for a class, or even performing a business proposal to start a heli-skiing company on the west coast. This relates to the class discussion on plagiarism, and as already stated will affect how I write research papers from here on out.