In the 1910s , the movies were just starting to come into their own as a pop art descriptor . Feature - length picture show were on the rise , a fistful of actors and theatre director were gaining respect from critic , and the mass medium was actuate from a meretricious freshness to widespread popular entertainment . But while the nascent Hollywood film community was celebrating , not everyone was so happy about the ascendance of the moving pictures .
journalist and implicated citizens began penning articles and newspaper column monish against the miscellaneous dangers of movie house . Their concerns ranged from the wellness effects of moving-picture show to more general fears about morality . And while some people were but doubting of the esthetic value of the new spiritualist , others made it seem like the movies were on the sceptre of destroy civilization . Here are a few reason to stay put far , far away from your local moving-picture show theater , according a compass of concerned citizen between 1910 and 1919 .
1. MOVIES MADE KIDS DUMBER.
now , parents worry about their kids rotting their minds with too much television or too many video games . But in the 1910s , parents worried that the movies were dumbing down their shaver : “ It is not only the artistic side of the cinema to which objection may be raised , ” wrote one interested citizen toThe New Agein 1917 [ PDF ] . “ It is rather , the educational side , for it is a well - known fact that children frequent the film - palace — as it is often call — to a very magnanimous extent . ” He bear on :
2. ACTORS WERE DEGENERATES WITH DIRTY MOUTHS.
The fact that movies were tacit apparently did n’t stop actors from using dirty language . In a 1910 article , The Oregonianreported that “ indifferent mutes ” had caught actors in several movies using “ unprintable language . ” The article quoted one scandalized interview member who call out , “ I am ashamed to repeat what that player has just said … If the police force could have heard the last remark of that man on the CRT screen , they would pick up the handler of the show . ”
3. CINEMA AND ART WERE ANTITHETICAL …
One of the most vernacular critiques of motion-picture show was that , as art , they just were n’t any good . Many diary keeper looked down their noses at film , dismissing it as a fad and a cheap novelty . But a few theater critic read a more extreme stance , reason that film was a threat to art itself . “ In the sacred name of truth , let us abolish this newcliché : to speak of ‘ the artistic production of the movie ’ is to engage a vast farce of a phrase that is a contradiction in terms , ” wrote one journalist in a 1916Harper ’s Weeklyarticle call “ Movies Destroy Art . ” He continued :
4. … AND MOVIES LACKED MORAL AMBIGUITY.
At a time when many were call for increased security review of immoral content , a few journalists in reality argued that motion picture wereoverlymoral . “ The moving-picture show have institute a ego - censorship,”wroteFloyd Dell in 1915 :
As a result , publish Dell , the movies are “ sterilized , emasculated , completely innocent . ”
5. FILM STOCK WAS DANGEROUS …
picture theater fires were a real danger in the 1910s . The nitrate picture show which film were projected from was extremely inflammable , and anything from the high temperature of the projector lamp to a careless projectionist ’s cigarette ash could get off a theater up in flames . dramaturgy fire were a problem that predated the moving pictures , but grant to journalist , the combination of inflammable film and cramped screening infinite without adequate fire exits created an increased threat . In some type , the claustrophobic theater and fear of fire were enough to do life - threatening terror ( film historiographer Gary Rhodes dedicates an integral chapter to movie dramaturgy flaming in hisbookThe Perils of Moviegoing in America , 1896 - 1950 ) . In 1911,The New York Timesreported that 26 masses were killed when calls of “ Fire ” relegate out in a Pennsylvania theatre , penning , “ Yet this panic would not have resulted so seriously if the picture show had not been display on the second floor of a construction , with a stooping hallway , an ill - get off staircase , and deficient exits . … [ The theater ] was always prepared for a outstanding debacle . The scene was set up for the cataclysm . ”
6. … AND SQUINTING AT THE SCREEN COULD DAMAGE YOUR EYES.
It turn out all of our fears about smartphones and tablets ruin our vision got their start a long , long time ago . In 1912 , a doctor named George Gould published anarticlein theJournal of the American Medical Associationtitled “ Acute Reflex Disorders triggered by The Cinematograph , " in which he drop a line , “ That the moving - moving-picture show show cause in many witness , functional diseases exchangeable to those of center - strain and ocular labor must have been noticed by every general practitioner and eye doctor of the cities , and yet , so far as I know , none has publicly point attention to this important fact . " Gould persist in :
7. DARK THEATERS ENCOURAGED ILLICIT ACTIVITY …
Some worried about what could happen in a dark theater once the lights went down . Among them was Mayor Gaynor of New York City , who in 1910 gave the commissioner of licenses , Francis Oliver Jr , , authorization to impel movie theatre to change by reversal on their lights . The ordersent out to the theatersread :
8. … AND TURNED KIDS INTO CRIMINALS.
In a 1910Good Housekeepingarticle called “ The Moving Picture : A Primary School For Criminals , ” William McKeever wrote :
9. FILM WAS A “MICROCOSM OF EVIL.”
