The history of censorship in America can start in many places. Still, Cole Porter’s 1934 Broadway hit Anything Goes makes the point with a wink. In it, Porter took a sly shot at how quickly standards of “decency” were shifting.

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

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The song itself slid past the censors with wit, calling out the complacency and hypocrisy of America’s elite. Porter laced it with digs at the public’s flirtation with radical politics, while at the same time mocking the excess of Hollywood, the very industry that, in 1934, imposed the Hays Code to police morality on screen.

The backdrop was the Great Depression. One in four Americans was out of work, breadlines stretched for blocks, and yet the cultural guardians of the day were more scandalized by lyrics, short skirts, and jazz clubs than by the hunger and despair of the nation.

Contradictions such as this have repeated for decades. From Porter’s satire to rock ’n’ roll in the 1950s, to Hollywood blacklists, comic book trials, and today’s shadow bans, America’s censors have always rushed to police art while bigger problems raged. The labels keep changing: “immoral,” “obscene,” “offensive,” “misinformation”, “fake news,” but the reflex stays the same.

I hear all the uproar. I get it. We, as creatives, need to understand the past to understand today. 

Many of my artist friends are furious, like foaming at the mouth furious, over the politics of today. 

A bit of caution here: It is not the first time, nor will it be the last. Both the right and the left have their forms of censorship. To deny that is being naive. 

A little trip into the past will help put some perspective on where we are today. 

1930s: Jazz Age Satire & the Hays Code

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By 1933, Prohibition had ended. Liquor flowed legally again, and nightclubs, speakeasies-turned-bars, and jazz halls drew crowds hungry for escape. Cities pulsed with nightlife even as much of the country staggered under the realities of the Depression. Entertainment was both release and rebellion. It provided a way to forget the struggle of the nation, if only for a night.

In July 1934, Hollywood began enforcing the Hays Code, a strict set of moral guidelines for film. Studios could not release a picture without approval from the Production Code Administration. 

The Code stripped films of anything that smelled of trouble. No swearing, nudity, suggestive dancing, mocking religion, and absolutely no mention of homosexuality. Violence had to look clean, and crime always had to end with punishment. 

You can imagine the trouble for filmmakers. It wasn’t just about cutting scenes. It meant twisting whole stories to fit the rules, hiding realities behind innuendo or skipping them altogether.

Mae West

Mae West was one of the first stars hit by the Code. Her bawdy one-liners and double entendres made her a household name in the early 1930s, but by 1934, censors gutted her scripts. My grandfather loved her; my grandmother hated her. 

Cole Porter said about Mae West what others didn’t. Set to music, the words slipped past the censors. A Broadway sing-along on the surface, a jab at America underneath. Our country still has uneasy fight with art and decency. The more they tried to censor Mae West, the more the public paid attention.

In classic Mae West fashion, she’s remembered for saying: “I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.” The exact moment she said it is hard to trace, but the truth of it is obvious. Every cut to her scripts, every pearl-clutching headline, only made her bigger. What was meant to silence her turned into the best publicity money couldn’t buy.

At the same time, Tarzan and His Mate (1934) ran head-on into the new rules. Maureen O’Sullivan’s brief nude swimming scene sparked outrage, and the film was edited after release. Even Johnny Weissmuller’s skimpy loincloth pushed boundaries. The Code demanded that sexuality, even implied, be hidden or “corrected.”

This was the new reality: Hollywood stories would now be shaped by what censors allowed, not by what audiences wanted. 

Enter Cole Porter

Cole Porter’s brilliance in Anything Goes wasn’t just the catchy melody; it was how he loaded the lyrics with barbs aimed at American culture. He mocked the elite for their hypocrisy, skewered Hollywood excess, and slipped in digs at politics and shifting morality. Lines about “good authors” dropping into four-letter words or Eleanor Roosevelt broadcasting from bed with a Simmons mattress weren’t throwaways, they were satire wrapped in rhyme.

That was Porter’s gift: Porter said what others couldn’t. Set to music, the words slipped past the censors. A Broadway sing-along on the surface, a jab at America underneath. He turned panic into a tune people whistled on the street.

1950s: Rock ’n’ Roll & Moral Panic

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In 1956, Elvis Presley appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. He drew more than 60 million viewers, over 80 percent of the national television audience. His voice wasn’t the problem; it was his hips. Camera operators were ordered to film him only from the waist up so viewers at home wouldn’t see his gyrations. To church groups and parent associations, the movements were obscene. To teenagers, they were liberation.

The censorship didn’t slow him down. If anything, it made the performance more electric. Fans screamed, newspapers fumed, and Elvis sold records by the millions. The attempt to contain him only proved how much power was in what they tried to hide.

By the mid-1950s, radio stations across the South and Midwest refused to play Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. Preachers called it “the devil’s music,” pointing to pounding piano, gospel-soaked shouts, and lyrics that dripped with sexuality. Community leaders warned parents that this new sound would corrupt their children.

The bans didn’t kill the songs; instead, they spread them. Teenagers found ways to hear the records anyway, jukeboxes blared them in diners, and demand only grew. The attempt to brand the music as evil gave it an edge that made it irresistible. What frightened adults was exactly what pulled kids in.

Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry wrote songs that sounded harmless to adults but carried a different charge for teenagers. Tracks like Maybellene (1955) and Johnny B. Goode (1958) wrapped stories of cars, guitars, and ambition in sly double-entendres. To radio censors, they were just upbeat songs about driving fast or chasing success. To young listeners, the lyrics carried a wink to rebellion, lust, and freedom seething beneath the surface.

Berry’s trick was camouflage. He smuggled teenage desire past the gatekeepers by dressing it in rhythm and rhyme. While preachers railed against “devil’s music,” his records spun on mainstream stations, slipping danger into daylight. Maybe Chuck Berry was the Cole Porter of his day. 

In the 1950s, nobody had to pass a law to shut artists down. A sermon from the pulpit, a senator wagging a finger, or a parent group raising hell was enough to scare radio stations into pulling songs. Musicians learned that one complaint could cost them airplay. The silence was not officially enforced. Instead, it was fear. And for the audience at home, that silence made it seem like the culture was spotless, when in reality, the mess had just been swept under the rug.

Comics & Literature

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In 1954, comic books became the next target. Horror and crime titles were blamed for corrupting kids, with lurid covers and stories about violence and sex paraded before Congress. Publishers were grilled in Senate hearings, and public outrage made distributors nervous.

To survive, the industry created the Comics Code Authority, a self-censorship board that stamped approved titles with a seal. The rules banned gore, limited crime stories, and required that authority figures always be respected. Romance had to be chaste, and anything touching on drugs, sex, or rebellion disappeared.

The effect was sweeping. Entire genres collapsed, and artists who had built their careers on horror or crime were forced underground. What remained on shelves were sanitized stories meant to look safe in the eyes of parents and politicians, proof again that pressure, not law, was enough to reshape a medium.

Are you beginning to see the parallels of today?

Howl

In 1957, Allen Ginsberg’s poem Howl went on trial for obscenity. The book had been seized by U.S. Customs and San Francisco police, who argued its language and references to sex and drugs were too indecent for the public. The case went to court, with City Lights Books owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti charged for publishing it.

The trial became a test of whether literature could be raw, explicit, and still protected as art. Expert witnesses, professors, critics, and writers testified that Howl had serious literary value. Judge Clayton Horn agreed, ruling the poem was not obscene but a work of social importance.

That decision was a turning point. It didn’t end censorship, but it cracked the door open for modern literature to speak plainly about sexuality, politics, and human experience without fear of automatic suppression.

In 1959, the U.S. Post Office tried to block the unexpurgated edition of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover from being mailed, calling it obscene. The novel, first published in 1928, had been notorious for its frank descriptions of sex and its portrayal of an affair between an upper-class woman and her working-class gamekeeper. American publishers had released bowdlerized versions for decades. Still, when Grove Press issued the complete text, the government moved to stop it.

Grove Press took the government to court and came out on top. The judges admitted the book was sexually explicit but decided it mattered as literature, not smut. For the first time, Americans could read Lady Chatterley’s Lover without cuts. The ruling chipped away at the government’s power to pull books off shelves in the name of morality.

The Chatterley case, coming just two years after the Howl victory, signaled that the tide was beginning to turn. Literature that had once been unthinkable to publish could now stand as protected art.

McCarthyism & Blacklists

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During the Red Scare, Hollywood careers could end on suspicion alone. The House on Un-American Activities Committee hauled actors, writers, and directors into hearings, demanding they name names. Those who refused were blacklisted. They weren’t jailed, but they couldn’t get work. Studios, fearing bad press, cut ties instantly.

Charlie Chaplin, one of the most famous figures in film, was caught in the dragnet. Though never a Communist Party member, he was outspoken on politics and accused of being sympathetic to the left. In 1952, while traveling to London for a film premiere, the U.S. government revoked his re-entry permit. Chaplin chose not to fight it. He settled in Switzerland and didn’t return to America for nearly 20 years.

His exile showed the reach of informal censorship. No conviction, no trial, just suspicion and pressure. And that was enough to silence even the biggest name in movies.

The Weavers

The folk group The Weavers were at the top of American music in the early 1950s. Their version of “Goodnight, Irene” sold millions and put folk songs on the pop charts. But their success was short-lived. Members of the group had past connections to left-wing politics and labor movements. During the Red Scare, that was enough to brand them as subversive.

By 1952, television appearances were canceled, radio stations stopped playing their music, and their record contract was dropped. They were effectively blacklisted — not by law, but by fear.

Still, the Weavers didn’t disappear. They continued to perform in small venues, college campuses, and union halls. That underground persistence kept folk music alive until the next wave. A decade later, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul, and Mary would ride that revival — a legacy planted in the years when The Weavers were forced out of the spotlight.

The blacklist era proved that censorship didn’t need statutes. Fear did the work.

The Echoes Today

 Platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter) now act as informal censors. It’s not laws that silence creators — it’s algorithmic rules, advertiser policies, and corporate fear of backlash.

Demonetization: YouTube’s “advertiser-friendly” rules have forced many creators to remove or tone down content (political opinions, social commentary, LGBTQ+ issues, etc.) because it becomes unprofitable. What’s legal isn’t always profitable or allowed under platform policy.

Deplatforming: Major platforms have banned users outright for violating content or hate speech policies. For example, Alex Jones and InfoWars were removed from Facebook, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

Shadow bans / algorithmic suppression: Instagram and TikTok demote posts with specific hashtags, hide comments, or suppress visibility without notifying the user. People report their content vanishing from feeds or search results even when it seems above board.

No law is needed for this kind of censorship to take effect. Platforms write their own rules, and creators live or die by them. One algorithm shift, one tweak to an ad policy, and a channel that paid the rent yesterday can be worthless today. The silence doesn’t come from a courtroom; it comes from Code and fine print.

Here And Now

Today, the censors just swap vocabulary. Yesterday, it was “obscene” or “immoral.” Now it’s “offensive,” “inappropriate,” or “misinformation.” Different words, same chokehold. No law needs to be passed, no courtroom ruling handed down. The threat alone is enough. Platforms cave, advertisers panic, broadcasters fold. It’s the same script the churches and politicians ran in the 1930s and 1950s, only now the gatekeepers hide behind algorithms and PR statements. Control hasn’t vanished; it’s just wearing a cleaner set of clothes.

In 1939, Billie Holiday began singing Strange Fruit, a haunting song about lynching in the American South. The lyrics were stark, describing “black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze.” Radio stations refused to play it. Record labels hesitated. To many, the song was too raw, too political, too dangerous for public airwaves.

Holiday sang it anyway. Night after night, she closed her sets with it. The lights in the club went dark, service stopped, and the audience was forced to sit in silence before the first notes. What the industry tried to suppress became the defining protest song of the era.

Strange Fruit never broke into radio charts, but it didn’t need to. Its power spread through live performance and word of mouth. The song proved a point that echoes across decades: some art is too urgent to bury. Attempts to silence it only sharpen its edge.

Why It Matters

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Censorship never works the way the enforcers intend. It doesn’t erase the art; it mutates it. Pressure creates sharper edges, forces new forms, and pushes artists to slip their message through cracks. What survives is leaner, louder, and harder to ignore.

Cole Porter had it right in 1934. What counted as “obscene” then looks tame now, and today’s red-flag words will seem just as small in hindsight. The real damage isn’t to the art itself; Art finds a way through. 

The damage is in the delay. Voices have been muted for years, stories buried, and creativity forced underground until the culture finally catches up. Censorship doesn’t kill art, but it makes us wait. And too often, it makes us wait for the work we need most.

Can We Help You?

Censorship is everywhere. This is nothing new, but will you just wait for it to pass, or decide what you’ll do while it’s here?

Censorship isn’t history; it’s happening right now. If this hit you, drop a comment and add your voice. Share it so others see what usually gets buried. And if you want to keep these conversations alive, subscribe. Every reader matters.

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