Madame Alice Blaché, president of the Solax Motion Picture Company, known as the only woman of prominence manufacturing and producing moving pictures, and the pioneer in the production of grand opera in motion pictures, said in discussing the Dowling amendment to the Folks ordinance placing all films under the supervision of the Board of Education:
“Before making serious changes the manufacturers of films should be given an opportunity to be heard. A board of censorship should be composed, in addition to the members of the Board of Education of practical business men and film manufacturers. The exercise of a rigid censorship would work considerable harm, and a reaction after too much censorship is likely to ruin the industry.”
In discussing children and moving pictures, because the attendance of children at picture shows makes censorship necessary, she said:
“Twenty school children, not one of them above the age of fourteen, accompanied by their teacher visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on a Sunday afternoon not very long ago. The class consisted of boys and girls. The children were of the type one sees in the recreation centers and playgrounds in the tenement sections of a cosmopolitan city. They were bright children and shuffled through the corridors of the marble museum with eyes full of enquiry and minds making mental photographs of the wonderful collections on exhibit. The zigzag line of these impressionable youngsters eventually filed into the large hall where are exhibited wonderful works from the sculptor’s chisel.
“The kids regarded the nude statues with a peculiar surprise. Some were embarrassed, and faced the teacher with somewhat averted eyes. The teacher, who understood children,--not because she had any of her own, but because she had not forgotten her own childhood—took in the situation and with tact managed to put the children at their ease. She made plain to them the difference between vulgar nakedness and nude art. As an example, she pointed to Rodin’s Pygmalion and Galatea, and she told them the charming legend of the statue that came to life. The story told by the teacher immediately cloaked Galatea’s nude figure with poetry. It made them forget sexual outline, and evicted from their minds any sex-consciousness.
“These same children and thousands like them attend moving picture shows. Those who know children at all know that the children of ‘the other half’ are wise in the ways of the world, and in life itself, and have a surprising knowledge of human nature,--more knowledge than their years would indicate. These children read the sensational newspapers with the avidity that they observe sensational moving picture films. The high average of child attendance at the moving picture shows and the diversity of opinion with regard to the influence for evil certain pictures have on the juvenile mind, makes the task of the film producers a rather difficult one. If manufacturers were to follow the advice of old maids,--who of course, understand the bringing up of children—and male tea-drinkers—the market would be crowded with nothing but fairy stories. The triangular plot and stories of real life would be taboo. It is sometimes wondered whether it is at all possible for a film of the type of ‘The Wages of Sin,’ etc., to influence a child in the ways of righteousness and steer it on to the straight and narrow path. Is it not at all possible that a film exercises the same influence as that teacher exercised over her children at the museum? Or is it impossible because the self-constituted bodies who superintend the public morals, can see nothing in creations like Pygmalion and Galatea but vulgar nakedness?
“The trouble with most well-meaning meddlers who undertake to prescribe for children of their neighbors is that they forget that they have been children themselves. They forget that they have resisted as many temptations, and perhaps more than their parents. And they forget that their children with proper home influences or good influences at the schools will resist as many temptations as they have resisted in their childhood. There is a difference of opinion as to whether the picture shows will counteract the influence of the school and home. To go exhaustively into the merits of films manufactured to-day would mean considerable discussion—but narrowing the question as far as films affect juvenile delinquency, is it not a matter of opinion as to whether children really commit the same crimes that they see in moving pictures? In pictures, the criminals are invariably punished. Can we not find any other reason for the juvenile delinquency except the one that it is caused by the sight of an overt act which the children try to emulate? Is it not reasonable to assume that the schools and colleges have failed in their missions if children cannot be taken to a moving picture show, and be shown a burglar entering a house without arousing in them the desire to commit a similar rime? The ostrich that digs its head in the sand to evade capture, feeling a mistaken security in darkness, usually is surprised to find itself captured. Its own ignorance is its undoing. By shutting our eyes against the evils that exist in this world, we will not succeed in eliminating these evils. They exist and will exist, and the more we talk about them, the more they are discussed, the more apt are we to correct them. Hypocrites and the “I am holier than thou” element are not the kind who helps society.
“Because they lived in darkness and in ignorance, do we call those who lived centuries before us primitive?
“At this time, when pictures are being shown in schools and colleges, and when the classics and exact scientific operations are flashed on the screen, when real dramas and operas are shown with more effectiveness and realism than on the legitimate stage, it is about time folks stopped to throw the harpoon into the hide of the moving picture manufacturers; it is about time that a real board of censorship is legislated into power; not a board composed of raw college students, tea-drinkers and old maids, but a board composed of mothers, fathers, practical men and women who are paid by the commonwealth to do a public service, to stamp out absolute immorality and absolute vulgarity that is flashed on the screens solely to entertain the morbid. There’s a marked difference between matters of ‘taste’ and ‘immorality.’ Manufacturers welcome criticism and censorship, but they will not tolerate the vagaries of meddling hypocrites.”
UNE DÉCLARATION INTÉRESSANTE Par Madame Alice Blache de la société Solax Madame Alice Blaché, présidente de la Solax Motion Picture Company, connue pour être la seule femme importante à fabriquer et à produire des images animées, et la pionnière dans la production de grands opéras en images animées, a déclaré lors de l'examen de l'amendement Dowling à l'ordonnance des Folks films sous la supervision du Board of Education:
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