My whole life I have heard people say that instead of parents preventing their children from viewing a movie or reading a book it is the government’s job or the people in charge to remove it from circulation all together. The topic that is never brought up in response to this claim is that art, in any form, holds the beliefs and views of the creator. This should not be suppressed simply because it is not fair that a group can ban it just for having a different stance. In the same breath, these are the parents and people that claim that art does not have any significant meaning in our society. The question that should be asked then is, if art does not play a role in society, why does art have to be limited? This shows that art plays a powerful role in expression. Hall’s “Encoding/Decoding” can be used to explain why a text can be looked at as good and bad, and with examples included in Lubitsch’s To Be or Not to Be I will be comparing these to movies not produced due to fear of offending certain groups of people. I will also focus on other movies that did get produced that had this effect on people and why they were able to thrive. Hall states that a consumer or viewer of media is never passive, which provides the fundamental argument of the power of art and expression which is exemplified in Lubitsch’s film To Be or Not to Be.

In order to look at the examples of art forms, such as movies, that did not get published it is necessary to understand the process in Hollywood that leads to these decisions. The institution that is in place in Hollywood is the Hollywood Code of Ethics which goes through the different guidelines listed within the code to determine if the movie is suitable enough to get produced. The code addresses certain topics such as murder, vulgarity, and national feelings. In Hollywood it was not until recently that movies with any vulgar language or direct scenes involving murder were produced at all. Today these movies involving a significant amount of this content can be produced but must have a rating that provides a warning to all that choose to watch the production. In some cases this censoring that occurred in Hollywood is taken to a level that is more diminishing rather than effective. Kyle Edwards, in his essay on the Hollywood Production Code, says that, “The picture satisfies the requirements of the Code and contains nothing to which the censors could reasonably object” (Edwards 5). This statement describes the Hollywood Production Code in a way that is not beneficial. Instead it propels the idea that the code was put in place to look for anything that could be used to prevent the production of a film. This censors of art is a universal feeling that people have on these censorship groups because there is little understanding that these groups have in regards to the producer. As a result, most ideas expressed by the creator or writer that are different than the code committee members are deemed as wrong and easier and safer to smother rather than understand.

Another section of the code that suppresses ideas has to do with nationalism. Nationalism is defined as the love and loyalty to one’s country and because of this it is important to look at the section of the code regarding the national feelings. This section states, “The history, institutions, prominent people and citizenry of other nations shall be represented fairly” (Production Code 1930). This is important to notice because this section is applied in the movie To Be or Not to Be. While the movie overcame this section because they did not directly show a depiction of Hitler, but instead a play version of Hitler, the play within the movie did get banned because of this same section. From either the murder or vulgarity sections in the code, which is in place in fear of influence of viewers, and the national feeling section, which is in place in fear of backlash from other countries, it shows that movies, and art in general, have a significant amount of clout and is a powerful way of expression.  

Now it is important to view the instances in Hollywood where a movie did not get approved for production. It is seen that while Hollywood has produced countless films that have had and continue to have infinite effects on the people that view them around the world, there is a dark side which is full of dismissed and smothered ideas and expressions. The place known for making people’s dreams come true is the same place that has drowned others’ from ever seeing theirs come to life. Movies are banned and censored for a wide range of reasons whether it’s because they develop the idea of using controversial medical practices such as birth control, as is the case with the movie Birth Control, or because they may offend a group of people or person, as is the case with the play To Be or Not to Be.  No matter the reason for censoring, there is the same underlying theme expressed about art for it all, and that is that art is a powerful form of expression. One example of Hollywood’s hidden past is the 1930s production of Scarface by Howard Hughes. Being produced in the 1930s, the film was at the epitome of the mobster culture which made people very nervous and reserved when the news of a mobster based movie was in the works. Once completed it did not take long for the Hollywood Production Code of Ethics to have an impact on the film. In fact it is said, “The film was heralded as an example of the kind of protection the Hollywood Production Code of Ethics could provide to the movie-going public when implemented in 1934” (Scarface).  The film was banned because of its “glorification of crime and violence.” People believed this glorification could lead kids to believe this is the normal and follow a similar life choice. This reaction proves that the influence of art, not only movies, is very powerful on individuals.

As seen above, there are many examples of how art forms were prohibited as a result of fear for common people to be influenced by the pictures or messages expressed. The next question to ask is why these messages expressed in art are so effective in influencing the minds and beliefs of the common people that are consuming them. Pablo Goto, a diginetXpress writer of the article “The Influence of Art on Common People,” starts his article by defining the common people as “those who are not exposed to art or those who are not familiar with visiting museums” (Goto). These people are therefore ignorant to the effects of art and a blank slate to any influence that they may consume. Goto then goes on to say, “People react when they look at an artwork filtering their emotions through their personal experiences, their personal history” (Goto). This difference in personal experiences effecting how a person reacts to art is important because it corresponds with Stuart Hall’s points expressed in “Encoding/Decoding.” This connection occurs when Hall states that people cannot watch or read something passively. This means exactly what Goto expressed in that the people interact with an art form in their own way and draw conclusions based on their experiences in the past. This also reinforces the idea that the common people, who do not have experiences with this form of art, are more likely to take the information presented flat out, and therefore act more passively. They are still not passive because they interact with the information they are receiving and adopt them as their own. This is how art’s effect on people can vary.

Through these examples of instances where expression was smothered in order to stop the negative influences that they may have on groups of people all over the globe it is seen that the undeniable consensus is that the forms of art are powerful. People are subject to many things throughout the day and each of those things have an effect on those people differently. This is because art is a form that people can interpret in their own way which is completely dependent on their interaction with the medium. In any case, the idea that art is an extremely powerful form of expression is seen throughout all of the examples discussed above. Furthermore, the powerful effects of art can be seen through the close reading of Stuart Hall’s, “Encoding/Decoding” and Ernst Lubitsch’s, To Be or Not to Be. 

Stuart Hall is a strong believer in the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” He may have not used this exact cliché that can be heard around any kindergarten art class, but the same basic idea is relevant in “Encoding/Decoding.” Hall’s universal claim is that a receiver, of art, literature, or film, cannot simply receive something in a passive way. Instead, the receiver actively works with the produced work to decode the message that they wish to receive. Hall states, “The codes of encoding and decoding may not be perfectly symmetrical. The degrees of symmetry—that is, the degrees of ‘understanding’ and ‘misunderstanding’ in the communicative exchange—depend on the degrees of symmetry/asymmetry (relations of equivalence) established between the positions of the ‘personifications,’ encoder-producer and decoder-receiver” (Hall 234). The relationship between the producer and the receiver means that the producer plays the role of encoder and the receiver is the decoder. The encoder-producer’s role is to establish the work in the way that the producer wants it to be told. Therefore, in theory the decoder-receiver’s role is to receive the messages in the exact way the producer wishes them to, but Hall states this is not the dynamic. Hall expresses that there will always be a degree of symmetry and asymmetry when this process of encoding and decoding takes place. This simply means that there will be a different amount of contrast between what the producers initially wants the receiver to take from the work and what the receiver chooses to take from the work. The word choice is very important because it gives light to the fact that the receiver actively decides what they wish to think, unlike puppets who act passively and absorb the intended messages like sponges. According to Hall, the degree of symmetry will be different depending on the similarities between the positions held by the producer and the receiver. For example, if the producer is a right wing conservative and the receiver is a left wing liberal, any message expressed in a film about Donald Trump may get immediately dismissed by the receiver without connecting to any part of the story which would lead to complete asymmetry between the two sides resulting in a completely different decoding. On the other hand, if the producer is again a right wing conservative and the receiver this time is a moderate, they may be more willing to agree with some of the ideas expressed in the film. This is how a lot of politicians choose to run their campaign and is just one example of how art can play a monumentally powerful role in the expression of ideas. 

While the receiver can decode a different message than the producer originally encodes, Hall makes the argument that in all cases the producer still plays the role of setting a framework for thought. This is very important to understand art as a powerful method of expression because the creator will have an effect on the decoding of the receiver in all cases. Hall states, “Unless they are wildly aberrant, encoding will have the effect of constructing some of the limits and parameters within which decodings will operate. If there were no limits, audiences could simply read whatever they liked into any message” (Hall 239). Through this, Hall makes it apparent that without this limitation that the encoder creates through his work, the importance of his work would be all but nothing. This can be extended to all forms of art. For this reason, it shows that art can be an extremely powerful form of expression because it states that art does have a parameter with which the viewer must base his derived message off of. This also shows that although this can be extremely good in some cases when the producer creates a work that he encodes a very powerful message that is important to him, it can also explain how a receiver can decode a message that they believe is inappropriate and must be banned. The receiver and the producer both see the same overall description and idea in the work, but the encoded and decoded messages are drastically different. This difference in understanding creates problems in expression because the question is not whether art is important, it becomes is it important enough for everyone to see taking all the different decoded messages into mind. This is the main problem that the characters face in Lubitsch’s film To Be or Not to Be, and through specific examples throughout the plot it is possible to apply Hall’s ideas. 

Lubitsch’s film, To Be or Not to Be, has a play within the movie that in both cases embody the issue that art can create through its powerful and effective means of expression. The movie was produced in 1942 in the United States and expressed an image of the Nazi party in a not so glamorous way. This created the first collision between the producers who created the movie and some of the viewers who viewed this production as anti-American because it was about the enemy of the world at that time. This is the first example as to where Hall’s theory can be applied to the movie without even getting into the actual story line. The producers encoded a message they believed shed humor and humility onto the Nazi party in an attempt to ease the American people to not be scared of the entity. The receivers on the other hand did not view this movie in the same way, instead they had a degree of asymmetry so extreme that when they saw the impersonation of Nazi soldiers and generals by Americans they were in outrage. One example was that the father of one of the actors in the movie refused to view it and ordered his son to stop participating in the production. These receivers feared that the American people would view this movie and somehow come to like the Nazi party, when the real message of the movie was to make the Nazis look incompetent and stupid. These receivers knew the powerful affect that art had and only viewed the possible affect as negative. If they would have given the film a chance they would have seen that the effect of art was an anti-Nazi message which is what the producers wanted in the end. This is one example of why people should not be so quick to dismiss an artwork because there is always another side to the message of a work that the producer may have had in mind.

While Hall’s theory could be applied to the overall production of the movie itself to show the way art can express a powerful message, it can also be applied to the play within the movie as well. The characters of the play were all set to go forth with a production that would mock the Nazi party, in particular Hitler. While the movie was a clever and comedic way to express the Nazi party, there was an issue that arose that ended up getting the play banned from ever being performed. The government banned the production of the play because they saw it as a possible way to provoke Hitler into invading their homeland of Poland. They feared that if Hitler ever learned of this play he would take offense and act out against the entire country. In this example there are three groups that all are encoding or decoding a different message of the same work. The producers, or the theater group, encoded the play as a light hearted way to entertain the people of Poland and to keep them calm in the midst of a war prone world. The government were the first receivers that decoded the message as similar to the producers, but focused on the effect rather than the message. This effect that they feared was setting Hitler over the edge and it overshadowed their symmetry with the producers so much that they banned the movie. The third group was Hitler, and although he did not actually see the play and get a chance to decode a message himself, the movie expresses the message that he would have decoded. This reaction that Hitler would have is that he would have seen his soldiers expressed by another country in a comedy and immediately take offense to the play. This is just like the conservative producer and the liberal receiver mentioned earlier in the essay. The degree of asymmetry of established positions is so large between the theater group and Hitler that the understanding of the message varies drastically. All three of these examples show that there can be many messages that are decoded differently than the encoder’s original intention, but in each and every case art played a very powerful role in expressing the message that led to all of the understandings. This is another example expressing the powerful way that art can influence the audience. 

Art is a fundamental mode of expression that everyone uses which starts from the day a person can hold something in their hand. There will always be a critic that is there to try to interpret the art in a way that is desirable for them, whether good or bad. For one to be a good critic it is not good enough to know that art can play a very powerful role in expression, but it is essential for a good critic to understand and be familiar with Hall’s theory of encoding and decoding. This understanding is necessary because without it one may just think that their interpretation of the idea, or their decoding, is the only one that exists. After being exposed to Hall’s theory, the same person will understand that there are multiple ways to interpret a work and it is very rare that the decoding of the receiver is exactly similar to the producer’s encoding. This knowledge will hopefully stop the banning of strong and important art forms that express a unique message that is important to the producer. If the American critics and the Polish government only knew Hall’s message, the expression of To Be or Not to Be and the play within the movie would have been received differently. That’s why it’s always good to remember that for every half empty glass of water, there is also a half full one. 
