Race, Gender, and Film Censorship in Virginia, 1922–1965 by Melissa Ooten (review)

Melissa Ooten has written about going to the movies in Virginia and the project of film censorship in the Old Dominion. For the price of about eight movie tickets, Race, Gender, and Film Censorship in Virginia, 1922–1965 examines the various “contestations surrounding film censorship as a framework for more fully understanding the dominant political, economic, and cultural hierarchies that structured life in mid-twentieth century Virginia” (p. 2). Ooten, who teaches about women, sexuality, and gender at the University of Richmond, reveals the obscure history of Virginia’s Board of Motion Picture Censorship and the individuals and groups who either supported or flouted the board’s regulatory power. To make her arguments about how “issues related to race, gender, and sexuality framed debates over popular culture in a New South state,” she focuses on Virginia, a “non-urban Southern state”—a curious disclaimer considering how heavily her work concentrates on Richmond (p. 2).

Ooten’s book explores several topics related to the history of the censorship board during its forty-three-year lifespan. She looks at the emergence of the Virginia Board of Motion Picture Censorship in the 1920s and the parameters of its state-sanctioned authority. Ooten notes the board’s relationship to segregationist politicians in the state legislature and makes special mention of black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux and his attempts to challenge Virginia’s film censors. Race is nearly ever-present in the book as Ooten investigates “the regulation of depictions of African Americans on film and the contestation over movie censorship” (p. 19). In several instances, she examines how African Americans in Virginia pushed back against racist film portrayals and insisted on desegregated movie theaters during the civil rights era. Female sexuality and educational films, however, also concern Ooten, especially “the censors’ regulation of sex hygiene films” that conformed to “state ideology” (p. 164). Oddly, in a book that references nearly thirty movies and that is better suited to media and film studies than history courses, Ooten analyzes only a few films at any length. Birth of a Nation (1915), of course, receives attention. Lesser-known films, such as The Burning Cross (1947), Band of Angels (1957), and Island in the Sun (1957), also make brief appearances. Even Deep Throat (1972) gets crammed into the final two pages. In 1965 state agents censored their last movies because of a Supreme Court ruling that undermined the film board’s review power.

Perhaps in Ooten’s own defiance of censure, the author thanks no one, readers or editors, for critiquing her manuscript. Perhaps additional review could have helped Ooten refine her approach and expand her research while also suggesting that she eliminate the tedious summaries that conclude nearly every chapter. The resulting text reads too much like a dissertation. Appearing after Ooten’s story seemingly ends, a “Postscript” on “Regulating Film in the Age of the Internet” digresses into a jumble of contemporary topics, skipping from the horrific theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, in 2012, to serving alcohol at the movies, to violent video games like Grand Theft Auto, and to parental control over children’s Internet access. As the author of On Writing Well, William Zinsser, used to advise his nonfiction writing students at Yale: “When you’re ready to stop, stop. If you have presented all the facts and made the point you want to make, look for the nearest exit.”