Tennessee Williams in the 50s: a Mirror Competing Discourses

This article was a study of different but synchronized discourses mirrored in Tennessee Williams's Hollywood adaptations in the 50s. It discussed the effect of artistic agencies of censorship on the hows and whys of Willaims's adaptations. Most notably, PCA and HUAC were in charge of cultural and political regulations that no Hollywood film was immune from. Until the early 60, HUAC and PCA imposed religious values to supplant Communism, happy ending to replace the intellectual fad of pessimism and strict dressing code to restore the innocence of the Freud-conscious moviegoers. However, these agencies were not omnipotent. The voice of those discourses that the agencies were fighting against were heard in Hollywood. Hollywood achieved the subversion with the help of William's controversial plots albeit tamed by some reinforcing discourses of optimism and diluted religious values.

Expectedly, the movie-crisis era of the 50s, pushed big Hollywood studios like MGM, Warner Bros., Colombia Pictures, Paramount Pictures and Twentieth-Century Fox to court seriously with Williams for film rights over the financially successful plays like The Glass Menagerie (1945), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), The Rose Tattoo (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof DQG« +LJKO\ motivated by the pre-sold qualities of the film, the VWXGLRV GLGQ ¶W HYHQ ZDLW IRU WKH SOD\V WR JR RII WKH stage. The case of Glass Menagerie was a battlefield for MGM and Warner Bros. In the end, Warner Bros., whose letter archive since 1948 showed the instant struggle for buying the rights, could win Glass Menagerie for 1950 production (Palmer & Bray, 2009, p. 46 and 299).
The collaboration of Williams and Hollywood has been the focus of New Historic scholarship. Did the adaptability mean that Williams and Hollywood were communicating with audience through homogeneous discourse or they shaped different but complementary discourses? This article tried to answer the question E\ LOOXVWUDWLQJ WKH KRZV DQG ZK\V RI :LOOLDPV ¶V process of adaptation. It would be interesting to mention that both Williams and Hollywood challenged the categorization and genre definition of art: they ceased to be one-discourse bound.

HOW PCA AND HOLLYWOOD DISCOURSES MEET
Discussing Hollywood of the 50s would be LPSRVVLEOH LI :LOOLDPV ¶V DGDSWDWLRQV KDG Wo be put aside. Both Williams and Hollywood had this reciprocal relationVKLS WR VKDSH HDFK RWKHU ¶V IDPH artistic prestige and marketability. Many prize winning and commercially successful films of the era could bear witness: A Streetcar Named Desire (Kazan & Feldman, 1951), The Rose Tattoo (Mann & Wallis, 1955), Baby Doll (Kazan, and Kazan & Williams, 1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Brooks & Weingarten, 1958), Suddenly, Last Summer (Mankiewicz & Spiegel, 1959), Summer and Smoke (Glenville & Wallis, 1961) and The Night of the Iguana (Huston, and Huston & Stark, 1964). It seemed that restraint, decorum, self-discipline and moderation were imposed by movie regulations in the 50s and 60s. The letter-fights in New York Times of the 50s is the very proof of that claim where diverse ideologies and discourses collided such as Williams, Kazan (i.e The treatise of Motion Picture Production Code was divided into six parts, twelve sections, thirty nine titles and ninety six subtitles (!) discussing the whys and hows of the prohibition (Leff, & Simmons, 2001, pp. 285-300). The forbidden subjects had a very long list from dressing codes to killing a policeman on screen: 1-Crimes against the Law, 2-Sex (e. g. Scenes of Passion, Seduction, White-slavery, Miscegenation and Actual Child Birth were forbidden), 3-Vulgarity, 4-Obscenity, 5-Profanity, 6-Costume (e. g. Provocative Clothes, Undressing Scenes, Indecent or Undue Exposure were not allowed) 7-Dances, 8-Religion (i. e. Ministers of Religion PXVWQ ¶W EH depicted as comic characters or villains), 9-Locations associated with sin were inadmissible, 10-National Feelings had to be carefully and respectfully treated, 11-Title of the picture had to show the ethical practices of an honest business, 12-Repellent Subjects (e.g. Actual Hangings, Brutality, Branding of people or animals, the Sale of Women and even Surgical Operations had to be removed).
Though sensationalism was an important issue in PCA, the Code showed great decorum and care for genre definition. The codes discussing the careful GHSLFWLRQ RI µ5HOLJLRQ ¶ µ1DWLRQDO )HHOLQJV ¶ WKH prohiELWLRQ RI µ&ULPH DJDLQVW /DZ ¶ DQG µ5HSHOODQW 6XEMHFWV ¶ KDYH EHHQ REH\HG (YHQ LI WKH\ ¶YH EHHQ broken like Detective Story (Wyler, 1951), the films were not such a great critical and financial success compared with the sensational adaptations of Williams. What Hollywood objected most and twisted most, were only the Codes related to sensuality. Therefore, only those codes that followed the desired discourse of Hollywood were retained, the rest were shrewdly neglected. So, was Hollywood as unorthodox and controversial as it claimed? In its zest for the portrayal of unrestrained passion and feeling, µ\HV ¶ +ROO\ZRRG WULHG WR VKDSH GLVFXUVLYH GLVFRXUVH however, in its being strictly genre-FRQVFLRXV µQR ¶ +ROO\ZRRG UHLQIRUFHG 3&$ ¶V GLVFRXUVH 7KLV JHQUH categorization of films existed even in the pre-code era. Contrary to Wood ¶V EHOLHI GHFRUXP has long existed in Hollywood.
Historically, the disrepute of the Code from the mid Twentieth until the early Twenty First Century was mostly limited to its orthodox curtailing of sexuality while other discourses regarding Religion, Crimes against the Law or National Feeling were hardly discussed, and thus were marginalized. After the ³WZHOYH-year ban of cop-NLOOLQJ RQ VFUHHQ´ ZDV ZLSHG away by Detective Story (Wyler FULWLFV GLGQ ¶W FRQVLGHU :\OHU ¶V FRGH-breaking as bold as what Elia Kazan did in Streetcar Named Desire (1951) (Leff & Simmons, 2001, p. 198). It seemed as if nothing was HTXDO WR WKH SDVVLRQ VHQVDWLRQ DQG µUDZ HOHFWULFLW\ ¶ that Streetcar brought for audience which always indicated highbrow, yet notorious subject matters associated with Williams (Palmer & Bray, 2009, pp. viii, 1, 12, 15, 77, 86, 89, 94, 104, 106, 123, 128, 134, 148, 180, 191, 243, 245 and 260). In another :LOOLDPV ¶V DGDSWDWLRQ The Rose Tattoo (Mann & Wallis, 1955), most Italians were pictured as buffoons, mildly including the Italian priest, which was another deviation from the Code (i.e. National )HHOLQJ DQG 5HOLJLRQ +RZHYHU LW ZDVQ ¶W FRXQWHG DV code-departure compared with the carnal and pagan love of a woman for a man (Serafina for Rosario and later for Alvaro).
Film historians declared that sexuality was possible only if portrayed in the mold of marriage and family values. Nevertheless, many directors embedded HURWLFLVP LQ D V\PEROLF IRLO ,Q :LOOLDPV ¶V DGDSWDWLRQ the forbidden rape in Streetcar (Kazan & Feldman, ZDV UHSUHVHQWHG LQ 6WDQOH\ ¶V EUHDNLQJ RI %ODQFKH ¶V UHIOHFWLRQ RQ PLUURU ZLWK D SKDOOLF ERWWOH and later the fierce washing of the street with water hose. The fornication in Baby Doll (Kazan, and Kazan & Williams, 1956) was UHSUHVHQWHG LQ 6LOYD ¶V sleeping on Baby Dolls bed and his wild horse-riding while drinking the lemonade he previously offered to Baby Doll. In The Fugitive Kind (Lumet, and Jurow & Shepherd, 1959), besides meaningful gazes and pointed dialogues, the copulation was hinted when Lady Torrance offered Valentine Xavier a room with the picture of a nude lady which both admired greatly. In Suddenly, Last Summer (Mankiewicz & Spiegel, 1959) homosexuality was represented in the scantly clad male pictures decorating Sebastian 9HQDEOH ¶V room and the beach boys who were under Sebastian/ FDPHUD ¶V JD]H FDQQLEDOLVP ZDV UHSUHVHQWHG LQ WKH hungry looks of the beach boys approaching Sebastian and trapping him on a cliff.
Ironically, in religious setting, celebrating eroticism was much easier. Literally and figuratively, The Ten Commandments (DeMille, and DeMille & Wilcoxon, 1956) and Samson and Delilah (DeMille, 1949) looked far more amorous in their flimsy foil of religion. It would be interesting to mention that the director, Cecil B. De Mille, used to be a member of The Production Committee (i.e. the Hollywood Jury).
Thus, neither history was as objective as it seemed to be and nor were the Codes as strict as history claimed. 7KDW IDFW VXUHO\ HFKRHG %RQH\ ¶V definition of ³UHYLVLRQLVW KLVWRU\´ S WKDW KRZ ZH QDUUDWHG history and why we revised our narrations were more important than what actually happened (Morales, 1993, p. 101).

HOW WILLIAMSIAN ENDING IS TRIMMED BY HOLLYWOOD
:LOOLDPV ¶V EHLQJ PHUHOy subversive and controversial GLGQ ¶W win him fame and appreciation. His works has been tamed by Hollywood audience and PCA codes. He was so displeased with his first Hollywood adaptation in the 1950, The Glass Menagerie (Rapper, and Feldman & Wald, 1950), that he wanted to abandon the whole idea (Palmer & Bray, 2009, p. 26). However, he gave consent to many cinematic representations of his plays until he was alive. Ten television adaptations were broadcasted from 1947 to the 1984 version of Streetcar, whicK KDG :LOOLDPV ¶V blessing though aired after his death; nine foreign adaptations for television, theatrical release, and the small screen from 1954 to 1981 were produced; most significantly, fifteen Hollywood adaptations from Glass Menagerie (1950) to Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots (Lumet, 1970) were shining on the silver screen (Palmer & Bray, 2009, pp. 275-285 Hutcheon (2006) optimistically named it: ³Creative Interpretation/Interpretive Creation´ (p. 18, emphasis in the original). Williams wanted the popularity of Hollywood celebrity as well as the artistic aura of stage. Merging the binary oppositions of decorumconscious, PCA-affected Hollywood movie and uncensored art cinema, which were two very different domains in the 50s, seemed impossible. Their assimilation needed compromises, sacrifices and disillusionment on the side of Williams, which he halfheartedly welcomed to embrace Hollywood popularity.
His plays were moderated, most obviously in their ending, to fit the PCA discourse that many Hollywood producers, directors and audience approved of. Yet, this enforced, and sometimes unfittingly inserted happy ending was not merely the outcome of censorship imposed by PCA, Joseph Breen, Legion of Decency, HUAC, Hays Office Code and the rest of organized powers who tried to take percussions against the emergence of subversive discourse.
Many times, Hollywood bent or even broke the Codes and the bowdlerizing regulations. One can refer to the previous discussion in this article about the symbolic, religious and even literal depiction of the forbidden subjects. It seemed that the box-office was the cornerstone of the film industry. In the 50s, boxoffice was a complex network of directors, stars, acclaimed novelists and dramatists as scriptwriters, independent producers hunting controversial plots and the runaway Hollywood audience.
Hollywood was not in its heyday of the mid 40s any more. Weekly film attendance was reduced to fifty percent because of the popularity of TV, censorship and the growing suburban population (Leff & Simmons, 2001, p. 194). However, Hollywood tried to lure audience to box-office promising adult, Freudconscious, sensuous films much different with unchallenging programs in the small screen of conservative TV (Klinger, 1994, p. 40). One of the filmmakers in the 50s told Variety WKDW ³>Z@H ¶YH found the way to get across an interesting idea involving Marilyn Monroe or Jane Russell, but ZLWKRXW EHLQJ EROGO\ LQGHFHQW DERXW LW´ ³:H ¶YH found the way´, 1953, p. 37).
In the 50s, the C-UDWHG ILOPV ³&RQGHPQHG´ ZHUH alluring for many filmgoers. Some critics claimed that beneath the gray flannel suit and ready-to-wear chaste midi-VNLUWV RI WKH GHFDGH OXUNHG ³DQ $PHULFD WKDW \HDUQHG WR FDVW RII WKH ULJLG VH[XDO ERQGV´ Leff & Simmons, 2001, p. 211). In 1953, Playboy was born; on the other hand, in 1954, The Comics Code Authority banned the sadistic, sexual, criminal and violent topics in comic books which entirely ruined the business (Sarracino & Scott, 2008, pp. 60-62). )UHGULF :HUWKDP ¶V LQIOXHQWLDO ERRN The Seduction of the Innocent had the most dynamic position in shaping the Code. He argued that chLOGUHQ ¶V H\HV ZHUH XQZLVHO\ RSHQHG XS WR FULPH DQG psychosexual adult subjects which was a prologue to juvenile delinquency. Comics Code Authority was RSHQO\ UHLQIRUFLQJ WKH 3&$ ¶V GLVFRXUVH ,Q WKH V both passionate Playboyish and restrained PCAish discourses were advertising for communication. And if the communication was not possible, they tried to send a one-way message. Under the banner of PCA, lived a disciplined, refined, ethical but bigoted America; under the banner of Playboy, art film and comic books, another America sang of psychosexual liberalism, maturity and the scorn for modesty. Williams, of course, belonged to the second version of America and that was the pre-sold quality of his adaptation which magnetized Hollywood. By the early 70s, sex and violence themes were an inseparable part of American film industry (Brook, 2001, p. 359, Sklar, 1976).
In addition to subverting the sensual codes of PCA, Hollywood mildly subverted political regulation of HUAC. Used-to-be communists or gray-listed actors like Edward G. Robinson played villains to prove that WKH\ ¶YH UHWXUQHG WR WKH ZDUP DUPV RI $PHULFD /HY 2003, p. 164). The HUAC blacklisted movie artists like Joseph Losey or Dalton Trumbo lived a prolific life in exile by making European Art movies or script writing under fronts and pseudonyms; sometimes, they even won Academy Awards (i.e. American Oscar) (Lev, 2003, p. 156, ³Joseph Walton Losey´, and ³Dalton Trumbo´). To save their carriers, directors like Elia Kazan gave testimony before HUAC against some of their fellow artists whose QDPHV ZHUHQ ¶W QHZ WR WKH FRXUW 7R VHUYH WKH ER[office, they subverted PCA rules to a great extent by utilizing Williamsian themes (Brook, 2001, pp. 347-359, Kazan, 1988, p. 449 and 564, Hirschorn, 1979. ,Q :LOOLDPV ¶V DGDSWDWLRQ RI WKH V PDQ\ VKRWV KDG been taken and retaken, some shots had been cut then replaced by the metaphoric and symbolic appearance (rape in Streetcar [1951], adultery in Baby Doll [1956] and The Fugitive Kind [1959], anthropophagy and homosexuality in Suddenly, Last Summer [1959]). Thus, if audience wanted Williamsian ending, they could have it in one way or another.
Nevertheless, a clear-FXW DQVZHU IRU WKH DXGLHQFHV ¶ cinematic preference seemed impossible since Holly-wooG RI WKH V GLGQ ¶W JLYH PDQ\ JHQUH FKRLFHV ,I there were no PCA and HUAC rules, what would be the outcome? One might claim that the critics and the moviegoers of the 50s as well as the New Historicist of the 21 st century would praise the Williamsian tension and uncertainty reflected in his open endings and plastic theater exactly as the critics and audience RI %URDGZD\ GLG IURP WKH V RQZDUG <HW LW ¶V D partial conclusion. Clue-finding in the absence of any DOWHUQDWLYH LQ :LOOLDPV ¶V DGDSWDWLRQV RI WKH 0s or any redux version looked so demanding. Actually, all the studies were bound to history. They mostly covered the interviews with directors, producers and Williams and their struggles to bend or eliminate the Codes. What-if-there-were-no-Code is the gap in academic studies regarding Hollywood of the 50s.
Furthermore, only the box-office was not the UHSUHVHQWDWLRQ RI DXGLHQFHV ¶ ZDQWV DQG ZLOOV 7KH postwar ideology had an influential role to popularize the philosophy behind film production. With the American opulence in the 50s, the media declared that WKH ULVH RI $PHULFDQ VWDQGDUG RI OLYLQJ ZDV ³WKUHH times as high as the Britons, six times as high as the ,WDOLDQV >DQG@ HOHYHQ WLPHV DV KLJK DV WKH 7XUNV´ (Miller, 1958, p. 476). Now, Americans narrated a QHZ YHUVLRQ RI KLVWRU\ ³>I@URP WKHLU ERXQW\ Americans had fed Europe after two World Wars and DLGHG WKH 5XVVLDQV GXULQJ D SHULRG RI VWDUYDWLRQ´ (Conter, Ezell, & Fite, 1957, p. 313). It looked as if The Great Depression  and the Wall Street crash was erased out of the historical memory of the United States.
The Great Depression and War had to be forgotten so that Americans would embrace the luxury of the 50s. The postwar era needed to propagate a quest to transcend the brooding memories of war and pessimism. Hollywood spectacle could easily augment the Williamsian joys of life and human dignity despite loss. Hollywoodian Williams appeared to be a less ambiguous concretization of the so-called hope for the used-to-happy-ending audiences. And for more sophisticated audiences of art cinema, the adaptations could safely land on the ground of a meaningful resolution and promise (Palmer & Bray, 2009, p. 273, Taubman, 1962, p. 49, Yacowar, 1977. Therefore, the power play represented in PCA CodHV +ROO\ZRRG ¶V VXEYHUVLRQ DQG UHLQIRUFHPHQW RI WKRVH FRGHV :LOOLDPV ¶V ULVH DQG GHFOLQH RI VWDJH DQG FLQHPDWLF IDPH PRYLHJRHUV ¶ ER[-office choice and the postwar ideology well manifested )RXFDXOW ¶V illustration of power relations. In this complicated network of subversion and reinforcement, no institution or person can moderate everything according to its wants and will.

CONCLUSION
History can be written as one fact or recognized as a VHULHV RI IOH[LEOH ³ILFWLRQV´ 7KDW ¶V ZKDW +ROO\ZRRG did by exploring, revising and interpreting Williams DV µDGDSWDWLRQ V ¶ 7KXV ³KLVWRULFDO VFKRODUVKLS involv[ed] the (re)examination of facts, or the unearthing of new facts (often suppressed), which resulted in a foundation for new interSUHWDWLRQV´ (Boney, 1994, p. 196 +ROO\ZRRG ¶V FODLP IRU unorthodoxy, unrestrained energy and disdain for GHFRUXP 3&$ ¶V VWUXJJOH WR NHHS GLVFLSOLQH DQG UHVWULFWLRQV DQG :LOOLDPV ¶V LGHQWLW\ DV DQ DUWLVW DQG D Hollywoodian were all (re)examined and challenged in this article.

%RQH\ ¶V
³UHYLVLRQLVW KLVWRU\´ S ZDV RI great help to illustrate the New Historicist methodology. It claimed that history often reflected the period in which it was written more than the period it FRYHUHG µ5HYLVLRQLVW KLVWRU\ ¶ SULYLOHJHG WKH LQVSHFtion of ideology and cultural or material context over experimental and observed data. The focus was on the contemporary meanings that any text could or would FUHDWH 7KRXJK :LOOLDPV ¶V DGDSWHG SOD\V PRVWO\ mean to reflect the late 30s and 40s, they were the iconic representation of the ideology and discoursefights in the 50s (i.e. PCA and Hollywood opposetion).
With the lens of revisionism and re-visitism, this article illustrated the relativity of Williams and his adaptations, their being dialogic and not one-GLVFRXUVH ERXQG ,I :LOOLDPV ¶V ZRUNV GLG QRW KDYH WKH potentiality to yield to those PCA codes accepted by Hollywood and moviegoers, they would never be DGDSWHG 7KXV +ROO\ZRRG ¶V FKRLFH IRU DGDSWDWLRQ :LOOLDPV ¶V ZULWLQJ DQG WKH FKDQJHV LQ KLV DGDStations were an extremely political act of writing history as a tool of power to revise the culture of their time more than the culture of future or past.
According to Foucauldian concept of power, LW ³LV QRW something that can be acquired, seized, or shDUHG´ SRZHU ³LV exercised from innumerable points, in a set of unequal, shifting relations.
[It] comes as much from below as from DERYH´ 6KHULGDQ S 184). PCA and HUAC were not as powerful as they seemed sitting on the throne of regulating system. Hollywood and Williams had skewed their authority in many ways. That was how they partly reinforced and partially subverted the powerful discourse of their time.