Performing Arts, Landscape, History & Criticism, Popular Culture, Censorship, Architecture, Film & Television, Social Sciences 

From the earliest days of public outrage over ""indecent"" nickelodeon shows, Americans have worried about the power of the movies. This book contains eleven essays that examine nearly a century of struggle over cinematic representations of sex, crime, violence, religion, race, and ethnicity. 

Contents
The politics of performance : theater licensing and the origins of movie censorship in New York / Daniel Czitrom -- Passions and the passion play : theater, film, and religion in America, 1880-1900 / Charles Musser -- Mothering the movies : women reformers and popular culture / Alison M. Parker -- "To prevent the prevalent type of book" : censorship and adaptation in Hollywood, 1924-1934 / Richard Maltby -- Hollywood, main street, and the church : trying to censor the movies before the production code / Francis G. Couvares -- Black films-white censors : Oscar Micheaux confronts censorship in New York, Virginia, and Chicago / Charlene Regester -- Goodness had nothing to do with it : censoring Mae West / Marybeth Hamilton -- Foreign parts : Hollywood's global distribution and the representation of ethnicity / Ruth Vasey -- Political censorship during the Cold War : the Hollywood ten / Stephen Vaughn -- "A significant medium for the communication of ideas" : the Miracle decision and the decline of motion picture censorship, 1952-1968 / Garth Jowett -- The paradox of protest : American film, 1980-1992 / Charles Lyons.