The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde

After World War I, Hollywood took the place of European countries at the forefront of film production - and would never leave this position again. However, it turns out that at that time, Hollywood walked with the image well scorched before the rest of the country, the place was the literal image of the city of sin. All the time there were scandals involving big movie stars. Besides depreciating the image of the actors who were no longer viewed with good eyes, this infuriated the mob of religious fanatics, who did not miss the opportunity to curse against the new art, already seen with a lot of suspicion.

In 1924 all productions were already screened, and in 1930 censorship bans were made official in what became popularly known as the Hays Code, which included a list of dots called (Dont's and Be Careful). Among the main prohibitions of “Dont's” were: nudity, illegal drug trafficking, white slavery, miscegenation, ridicule of the clergy and intentional offense to any nation, race or creed. “Be Careful”, however, recommended special care in handling the following issues: flag use, firearms and drugs, techniques of murder, brutality, cruelty to children and animals, and prostitution, among others.

The movie Bonnie And Clyde is a perfect example of a movie that would not ever been made under the production code. Bonnie & Clyde's thematic daring appears early in the story when Bonnie Parker shows an interest in Clyde's life-threatening life (How's it going?), Followed by the sequence in which they both drink beer, talk about weapons with a certain sexual connotation (observe Dunaway's sensual look at Beatty's gun) and set off for a robbery, fleeing into a car at high speed. Only after all this adventure they decide to ask "what's your name?". The revolutionary mood comes to fruition when the outlawed couple stumbles upon a broken family and throws at a sign, ending with the proud phrase "We Steal Banks." This phrase reappears when the couple meets with C.W. Moss and asks, ‘’We stole the bank. Is there something wrong with this? " The question is directed at Moss, but it also serves the conservative slice of the audience. The film came to change the way of making movies in Hollywood and managed, innovating also by humanizing the bad guys, like in the scene where Clyde shoots a man and leaves saying he did not want to hurt him. There was no longer right and wrong. Codes of conduct and morals no longer existed. Finding that Bonnie and Clyde never regretted the life they led, it was noted that the ambiguity had reached Hollywood cinema.