The nude scene screened in a Jacksonville drive-in that made it to the Supreme Court
Debates about controversial content are common in the United States of America, but they once became the subject of a Supreme Court case.
The US has had an interesting and often frustrating history with censorship when it comes to the public screening of films. In the earlier days of the industry, the Hays Code provided strict guidelines for the type of content that was deemed acceptable and put a significant barrier on how filmmakers could express themselves.
It wasn’t until the establishment of a new ratings system under the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) that audiences had a clear understanding about what each rating meant: G marked movies that all ages could attend, PG meant parental guidance was suggested, and R was restricted to audiences over 17, with anyone underage having to be supervised by a family member.
The X rating was introduced for films in which no children could be present, but it ultimately proved to be too restrictive, as many assumed that it was interchangeable with pornography, which is why it was replaced by NC-17 in 1990, as the MPAA had already set a precedent after adding another new rating in 1984, with PG-13. It stood for slightly more mature films that didn’t quite reach an R rating, and was added after controversy over the explicitly violent and scary content in Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
This didn’t ensure that individual theatres wouldn’t still raise their own concerns, which is why, in 1975, the Erznoznik v City of Jacksonville case reached the Supreme Court. The university drive-in theatre in Jacksonville, Florida, screened films that were visible from nearby streets, and theatre owner Richard Erznoznik was sued because some of these titles featured nudity. It was argued as to whether there could be an explicit order demanding that he not screen any films that show nudity, which had been implemented by the city in response to complaints by parents.
The case was essentially decided in favour of Erznoznik, as it was shown that the ordinance was not precise enough to be applied. While the stipulation had been that the theatre not specifically screen films that included nudity, it did not expand to include any other potentially offensive content.
The court found that any attempts by the ordinance to supposedly protect children from explicit content weren’t well-defined, and that censoring Erznoznik’s freedom to screen films and limit his expression could not be justified by the complaints, which were ultimately private issues. That the court came down in favour of the theatre was a sign that the New Hollywood movement that had begun at the tail end of the previous decade was hitting its stride.
Due to the failure of several major studio films in the ‘60s, Hollywood began turning to younger, more experimental filmmakers in the next decade, and they would often include more hot-button topics within their work, which didn’t always mean that there would be explicit sex and nudity, but it did become more likely.
The court case does not single out one film that sparked the dispute, but there are many great films from 1975 that could have potentially been the culprit. Among the most shocking of the 1975 titles were the quintessential blockbusters Jaws, Stanley Kubrick’s subversive period epic Barry Lyndon, and the controversial ‘Best Picture’ winner, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
