In 1934 The MPAA voluntarily passed the Motion Picture Production Code, more generally known as the Hays Code, largely to avoid governmental regulation. The code prevented certain plot lines and imagery from films and in publicity materials produced by the MPAA. Among others, there was to be no cleavage, no lace underthings, no drugs or drinking, no corpses, and no on getting away with a crime.
A.L Schafer, the head photographer at Columbia, took a photo that intentionally incorporated all of the 10 banned items into one image.
The photo was clandestinely passed around among photographers and publicists in Hollywood as a method of symbolic protest to the Hays Code. (Jordan)
