Prizefighting and the Birth of Movie Censorship

55 Pages Posted: 2 Mar 2009 Last revised: 13 Oct 2009

Date Written: October 12, 2009

Abstract

Censorship scholars unanimously, but mistakenly, treat a 1907 ordinance of the City of Chicago as the first act of censorship in the United States. This Article finds, however, that movie censorship was born in March 1897 with prohibitions against a now-extinct genre: prizefight films that depicted real and staged boxing fights. At the time, boxing was generally illegal, yet the sport was enormously popular and boxers enjoyed privileged social status. In fact, shortly after Thomas Edison commercialized moving picture technologies in 1894, he accommodated the production of prizefight films at his studio in New Jersey, where prizefighting was prohibited.

The Article documents the reasons for Edison’s decision to veto of the use of his equipment for prizefight films, only a few months after the production of prizefight films at his studio. Because of Edison’s position in the industry, this decision effectively constituted the first form of content self-regulation in the motion-picture industry, approximately thirteen years before the presently-believed-to-be first form of content self-regulation in the industry.

This Article, therefore, begins to close a neglected gap in the literature on movie censorship. Its findings require a reexamination of content regulation in the motion picture industry, whose presumed twentieth century origins hide legislatures and industries already experienced with censorship campaigns and laws. Despite this Article’s historical reach, it provides important insights into modern-day social regulation. The failures of the nineteenth-century regulators to curtail popular activities like prizefighting can inform and shape current regulatory efforts, such as the design of anti-smoking policies.

Keywords: Censorship, Regulation, Self Regulation, Social Regulation, Preference Shaping, Motion Pictures, Boxing

Suggested Citation

Orbach, Barak, Prizefighting and the Birth of Movie Censorship (October 12, 2009). Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, Vol. 21, p. 251, 2009, Arizona Legal Studies Discussion Paper No 09-08, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1351542

Barak Orbach (Contact Author)

University of Arizona ( email )

1201 E. Speedway Blvd.
Tuscon, AZ 85721-0176
United States
520-626-7256 (Phone)

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