Hays Code censorship codes (perfume = gay, New Orleans = prostitute)
example · film history ·
retold in 3 talks
The Hays Code forbade mention of homosexuality or prostitution, so Hollywood developed visual-verbal codes: a man noticing another man's perfume signaled he was gay; a woman said to be 'from New Orleans' signaled prostitute. The prohibition produced an elaborate semiotic system.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 3
“The code for gay was when someone noticed that a man has a perfume on... For prostitute: 'She is from New Orleans.' It means prostitute.”
“When somebody says 'This woman is from New Orleans,' it meant prostitute... when somebody remarks about another man 'Doesn't he wear a perfume?' it meant gay.”
“if you say this woman comes from New Orleans it meant don't ask me why it meant she is a prostitute”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Michelle Pfeiffer1Daniel Day-Lewis1Audrey Hepburn1Shirley MacLaine1Gerhard Richter1William Wyler1Anatoly Lunacharsky1Ray Brassier1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
The Hays Code forbade mention of homosexuality or prostitution, so Hollywood developed visual-verbal codes: a man noticing another man's perfume signaled he was gay; a woman said to be 'from New Orleans' signaled prostitute. The prohibition produced an elaborate semiotic system., illustrating censorship and coded language,the big Other,prohibition structures desire
Vintage Slavoj Zizek Predicts the Future Need for the Phantasmic Guise #web3 #reality #crypto2004-06-08 · 1:56:12
Classical Hollywood used coded signs to bypass censorship: 'New Orleans' meant prostitute; 'perfume' meant gay; smoking after a fade-out meant sex occurred., illustrating split spectator,ideological big Other
52:59 "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES is a Conservative Liberal Film" - Slavoj Žižek (2012) | TIFF REWIND2012 · 1:09:18
How Hollywood's Hays Code used coded signals for prohibited topics: 'New Orleans' meant prostitute, and a man using perfume signaled homosexuality., illustrating obscene supplement,ideology