You Should Have Seen The Human Version
"Stop that! You shall cease behaving in that unseemly manner immediately and forever!"
Actors froze. Camera operators pulled their heads away from lenses. Sound technicians desperately tried to figure out if there was any way to scrub the outburst from the recording spells. Editors stomped their hooves in frustration as the intruder marched across every shot available. And the director, enraged beyond endurance (which never took much), simply reared back onto his hind legs and shouted "Who the Tartarus do you think you are? This is a closed set! We're trying to make a movie here, film isn't cheap, and you just cost us --"
"-- I," the dainty earth pony sniffed as she fully strode onto the movie set, "am Ms. Hays." She disdainfully looked at everything around her, making it clear that in spite of any evidence to the contrary, she personally owned the place and was having serious second thoughts about the purchase. "And we will be speaking about your language in due course. But before that happy moment can occur --" she checked the motionless actors "-- good: they have ceased their immorality. And now to ensure that it never starts again..."
She had an oddly chirpy voice (something else which would be impossible to fully scrub from the recordings), which sounded very little like something which could ever be produced by a pony and more like a bird who'd just learned there were other creatures in the world with the nerve to believe they were allowed to use any part of her sky. The coat was the exact color of curdled cream, and her expression suggested she'd spent her entire life sniffing it.
"Ms. Hays," the director angrily cut in. "And is that supposed to mean something to --" The lead spell gaffer hurriedly galloped up, whispered in his ear. "-- oh."
She waited.
"You're the studio owner's new --"
"-- confidant, if you like."
"The one he cheated on his spouse wi --"
"-- how dare you, sir! Their marriage was over! I would never violate the sanctity of a sacred union! Such an act would be immoral! I simply saw a lonely stallion and fulfilled my marely duty to provide him with -- comfort. A comfort he has truly come to appreciate, and certainly more than his supposed spouse ever provided. Any perception of the timing involved in my entrance to his life would be your error."
"Mine."
"Clearly."
"Including the part where you first showed up at the studio eight moons before their divorce."
"We all find an entry position somewhere."
The director, fully accustomed to telling most ponies whatever he wanted at the exact moment he wished to in the comfort that they could do nothing about it -- still managed to keep from saying Yes, and from what everypony in the head office was gossiping about, yours was under his desk. "And why are you interrupting my shoot?"
"I have been speaking to my confidant," Ms. Hays said. "Rather extensively. Our industry is young yet. Only two years now. And like so many younglings, if left unsupervised, it will race about doing whatever it wishes, to the detriment of a society which missed the chance to raise it properly. Therefore, I asked him for permission, as a good mare should, to become the parent to our studio. Somepony must set a moral example for all of Equestria. And after a time, he agreed to let me establish certain... standards."
"Standards," the director carefully repeated.
"Yes. Guidelines by which our movies shall be made -- or they will not be made at all. Standards which, in time, all of Equestria shall adopt without fail, and with great penalty for any and all violations." A sniff. "As soon as our supposed Princess starts seeing the inherent foolishness in her so-called Freedom of Speech and Expression laws. But for now, I have local authority only, and that authority is this: anypony here has the right to choose that they shall not comply with my simple, moral guidelines. And upon doing so, they will of course be immediately fired and blacklisted in perpetuity." The puce-green eyes narrowed. "I trust this is understood?"
"...yes," the director eventually forced out through his teeth. "So we were doing something wrong."
"Obviously! Your performers broke a guideline. Although as I am a fair and just mare, nopony shall be fired and blacklisted for that offense, as the standards were not officially in place yet." Her neck turned, and her mouth flipped open a saddlebag. "However, now that they are..."
"So... which guideline did we break?"
Several hundred pages emerged from the saddlebag, all completely covered in extremely small mouthwriting. A considerable amount of flipping followed.
"This one."
The director squinted.
"'No onscreen kiss,'" he carefully read, "'shall be permitted to last longer than two seconds' -- two seconds?"
"Yes," Ms. Hays primly (and proudly) said. "From first lip contact to last. Anything beyond that might entice our audience into pursuing false concepts of what a proper expression of affection might be."
He stared at her. Turned to the actors. "I... I want to time this. Nopony film anything. You two -- kiss. And one, and --" He blinked. "-- this is a joke, right? This has to be a joke. This is the absolute end of a three-reeler. Those two characters have been chasing each other across the entire continent, or at least as much of it as I could fake in here. It's the climax. It's where they show their love for each other in a way which nopony could ever see as anything other than the truest bond which could ever exist. And you think that can be expressed with a kiss that lasts two seconds."
"A good director," Ms. Hays decided, "could do it with hoof-pressing."
He couldn't seem to stop staring at her.
"But as the characters are not wed, there will be a three-second limit on hoof-pressing."
"Now," Ms. Hays politely informed the actress she had backed into the corner, which at least had the benefit of making the mare that much less offensive, "it is a mere trim. I completely fail to see why you would even want to resist. You do wish to continue your employment, yes?"
"You're -- you want to cut off my tail!"
"Of course. That is the new condition for your working at this studio."
"My -- my tail is my signature! It's my look! It's literally part of me!"
"And it is far too large."
The actress, or perhaps soon-to-be-former actress, was staring at her. Ms. Hays sniffed.
"Really," she said, "have you no concept of what the sight of an overly large, extremely full, floor-reaching tail does to the innocents in our audience? It corrupts. It entices them towards immoral acts, perhaps even bends them towards a fetish for the gaudy and unnecessary, when a moral pony is of course attracted to only the small, trim, and proper. And of course that means any who might come simply to see your tail -- well, that is clearly an audience which no proper studio would desire to have attending in the first place. A proper tail should be short. Modest. If at all possible, whenever it might be exposed in public, it should not be. Wraps shall come into fashion soon once I speak to the proper ponies, legislated fashion. High-backed dresses are of course completely inadequate, as they only suggest as to the scale of what is underneath. But as your director continues to insist that a wrap would not fit this scene -- truly, she is just as short-sighted as the last party I provided guidelines to -- you have but two choices. I can personally trim your tail to proper standards. Or you can be escorted off the studio lot. Permanently."
The actress was still staring at her.
"Really," Ms. Hays said, "a mare who wished to have continued screen presence in my industry would do well to have her tail docked."
"That spell," she told the magic gaffer. "Strike it from the script and replace it immediately."
The stallion blinked at her. They all seemed to be doing that. She was starting to suspect the sets were far too brightly lit. "But... but it's how they break into the bank. It's the only spell which could break into the bank at all, after we spent all that time establishing the security measures in the first reel. Everypony watching who knows anything about workings is going to be aware the gang is using the last trick in the world which has a chance. We'd have to rewrite the entire script..."
"Well, it's not as if writers ever do anything important, is it? What would they need, two seconds to think of an equally stupid second excuse? The spell has been struck. Use something else!"
A nearby ink-stained table now had the ponies who surrounded it staring at her. Far too brightly-lit, indeed.
"But -- why?" the gaffer hopelessly insisted. "Why can't we use the only possible spell...?"
Were all of them truly this clueless? Well, it was already known that the average intelligence of those who worked in movies was as low as their moral fiber, or at least that was known by all the ones she'd told. "Because you are teaching ponies how to rob banks."
He stared at her.
"There is a single spell," she explained, "which can break the security at the bank. Your characters, who are bad ponies, bad ponies indeed whom somepony among your idiot scribblers has made the soon-to-be-fixed error of treating sympathetically, and thus we must also rewrite your ending because the immoral shall never be victorious in the final reel.... are casting that spell. And so everypony who watches the film will see that spell. Some are rather weak-minded immoral individuals: in fact, that is the majority of those who would freely approach a movie which they believe to have been filmed without standards. They will see a spell which allows the robbing of banks. And then some of them, enticed by those immoral images, will go out and rob banks themselves, using the spell they had just learned. Have I made this adequately clear to you?"
His lips moved for a while. Speech took somewhat longer to emerge.
"...the security spells aren't real," he finally said. "They're just glow. We film the glow and it looks like security spells. We just make sure the characters give them the right names. It's the same thing with Horsaw's Breaker. The actor can't actually work it. He ignites his corona, pushes to a double, and we call it the Breaker, just so anypony watching who understands that level of magic will have things seem that much more authentic. And even if he could cast the thing... once we get it on camera, it's just glow! On film! There's no feel with film! Nopony in the world could learn how to cast a working just from watching glow...! It's a movie! Nothing is real!"
"The moral weakness of the typical pony," Ms. Hays peacefully countered, "is more real than somepony of your clearly limited intellect could possibly imagine."
Were any of them capable of blinking?
"So either the spell goes -- along with that inferior excuse for a script," she established, "or everypony involved with it does. So which shall it be?"
"Now, this is the next guideline," she imperiously said. "Whenever two actors are sharing a bed together, they shall be on opposite side of the mattress, and the camera must be angled to show that each has, at a minimum, one hind hoof on the floor. Preferably two. There are to be no exceptions to this. As with all the other standards, anypony violating it will be fired and blacklisted."
The actors gave her the latest in a very extended performance series of long looks, none of which managed to truly register on the most local audience.
"You are a pony, right?" the younger one asked.
She hoped that her sniff came across as adequately dismissive, even for the most self-blinding ponies. Then again, given her previous experiences across the various buildings on the lot, there was probably no way to get through except the verbal, and even that... "Obviously. Why would you ever ask such a blatantly idiotic question?"
"Because you don't seem to know how pony legs bend," said the slightly older. "The most practical way to do that is... here, just watch."
They both rearranged themselves. After some awkward shuffling, the efforts produced a pair of ponies, each of whom had their forelegs and barrels on the bed, with their hind legs and recently-trimmed tails resting upon the floor, facing each other across seeming acres of empty mattress.
And for the first time during her visits to any of the sets, Ms. Hays found herself nodding with open approval. "That... is actually quite acceptable. Well done!"
Both performers stared at her again.
"We're supposed to be playing a married couple," the younger said.
"I read the script." She'd already crossed out most of it.
"And you think married couples sleep like this?" the older shot back. "That anypony could sleep like this?"
"That is not the point!" Ms. Hayes insisted. "The point is not to show anything which could be found offensive by a proper mind! The point is not to give the immoral parts of our feeble-brained population any ideas!"
"...ideas -- about?" the younger carefully asked.
It took a few moments of gathering her strength before she could form the word.
"Sex," she reluctantly said.
"Sex," both actors echoed.
"Yes." And then, with just as much satisfaction as she'd felt during the composition of the standards, she proudly continued with "Because nopony in those positions could ever do anything even remotely approaching having any kind of sex."
"No kind of sex," said the younger.
"Isn't that obvious?"
"At all," added the elder.
"Clearly! For there is no way for them to touch!"
The performers looked at her. Then at each other.
"Do you still want to work here?" asked the younger.
"No," said the older. "You?"
"No."
"Well, in that case... shall we?"
"Yes, I think so. Might as well go out with a bang..."
Both horns ignited.
Her breathing still hadn't slowed in the least by the time she reached the head office. Having raced all the way across the studio at full gallop hadn't helped.
"Pookie?" her confidant endearingly worried as she kicked the door shut behind her. "What happened? I haven't seen you this stressed since Tanibelle nearly caught us in --"
"-- it's... nothing," she panted. "Nothing more than I should have expected! I knew this industry was a haven for the unclean and liberal and sick and immoral, but to see -- to see that...!"
"...see what?"
Forelegs were beginning to frantically gesture. "Right in front of me! In front of everypony! The ones with the cameras just kept filming! And all their former director said was that she'd just discovered a new genre!"
He came out from behind their favorite desk, rubbed his flank against hers. "Easy... easy... just breathe... slowly..."
After a time, she managed it, and smiled at him. "I'll be all right. Just -- don't ask me to talk about what I saw. Not until later, anyway."
He nodded. "So is there anything about your little project you can tell me about?"
She loved that: his calling her great and moral work a "little project." It was almost as if he truly didn't understand what was at stake, how the very future of all Equestria had so clearly been at risk, at least until she'd taken the first hoofstep towards herding the young industry down the moral path. No, he'd simply told her that if she truly had some great ideas, she should just write them down and gallop with them, just do whatever she wished because he loved her that much, or certainly that was how she'd heard it. And his word on the lot was law and she so obviously spoke for him, especially when he didn't understand enough to speak for himself. And she had done just that, knowing he trusted her implicitly. And besides, he was far too important to spend any time looking over her written results. And busy. And in slight need of moral adjustment himself, but she was working on that...
"Well... except for... that... it went well enough. I can safely say that after my first efforts, there are no immoral productions taking place anywhere on our lot. Everything has been properly adjusted to a state where a proper studio can begin to show Equestria why we and we alone are the model who should be followed." And in time, had to be followed, by law...
"So how many productions did you have to adjust?"
"All of them! Can you believe that? I expected degenerates, but to find nothing but..." She found another smile. "Well, at least that's somepony else's problem now. All of it. At least until we win, and then they'll be blacklisted from everything." The thought made the smile stronger.
He blinked at her. "Somepony -- else's problem?"
"Well, yes. Since they're not allowed here any longer, and it's not as if I'll ever stand to have those degenerates under contract again..."
And now it was staring, happening away from the harsh studio lights. "You fired ponies?"
"Blacklisted. Kicked off the lot. And in doing so, I shut down their immoral works." She shuddered. "So many immoral works..."
"Pookie..." Softly. "How many ponies did you get rid of?"
"The immoral ones."
His voice seemed to be oddly tight. She would have to work on that later. "How. Many?"
Proudly, "The proper number."
"How --"
"All of them!"
She jumped backwards just before the hard-kicked gate would have rammed into her snout, and watched her former confidant angrily stomp away until his lashing tail was finally out of sight. Forever.
"Well," she huffed to the immoral world itself, "some ponies clearly need some extra time before their total lack of standards comes out...!"
Her properly short and wrapped tail swished, and she began to purposefully march away, doing her best to ignore the laughing, jeering, extremely long and vocal line of performers and camera operators and gaffers and directors and everypony else waiting for readmission, possibly after a little personally-beneficial renegotiation of the new contract as compensation for continuing to be degenerates. And she wanted nothing more than to get away from them, and him, and try to find a new place where the moral quest to save Equestria from those who comprised it could begin again --
-- but she stopped in front of two particular ponies, briefly stared at their mirthful faces, and let the fury come out.
"And what did he mean, 'I'm going to be the first pony to sell a whole new genre?'"
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Sadly, I already knew you hadn't made it up. Though my favourite example of skipping around the code is the kissing scene in Hitchcock's Notorious, where the brief three-second kisses were interspersed with conversation and managed to made it even better than watching two people suck face nonstop.
Oh that was glorious! Well done, my good Sir or Madam, well done indeed.
I really have to wonder about people who find lewdness and impropriety everywhere, and what they typically think about to so readily see immorality wherever they look.
In any case, a hilarious confluence of inspiration and history. Thank you for it.
7183332
Censors are generally not very smart people
Oh dear Celestia... I was laughing at the whole thing. Though remove the Sex tag! It's going to infect young and impressionable minds! Oh the horror!
Go out with a bang.
Perfect.
BetterToDieThanBeKilled? ... I hope that mare that got her tail trimmed gets compensation...
So, what's the new genre?
7183461 Pornography.
7183629
Via NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity? ... Oh. OH!
I thought Hays was the focus of the new genre, like a Mockumentary or something, not that her actions resulted in the genre.
... Why did they light their horns? The Lights part of Lights, Camera, Action? ... Part of the Bang of "Out with a bang?"
I'm not really sure how I feel about this fic, to me, the jokes kinda fall flat even though it isn't really such that I think it's down vote worthy. It's difficult to make censorship funny, especially since this fic doesn't actually do anything that wasn't already being done with the actual Hays Code. More to the point though, it's not even really uncomfortable because its intensely clear that Hays is the only pony who actually cares about this stuff.
It doesn't really help that most of what she was trying to do really seems to just enhanced the indecency--for example, removing tails that would normally cover their private areas. Maybe that was the joke, I don't know.
In truth, I thought the joke was going to be her censoring the violence and leaving the sex in, due to differing cultural views, but...
7183353
It has been noted that no one thinks more about sex acts than those who want to regulate them.
7183355
See the entire run of Animaniacs for details. (G'night, everybody!)
7183359
If you have a young and impressionable mind, and you're on this site, it may already be too late.
(I went through brief mental hesitation on using the Sex tag: nothing's described, but the implications of what's happening during the line break are pretty clear. Ultimately, I decided it warranted the inclusion.)
7183461
In some ways, it's similar to what happened with the Comics Code Authority. In both cases, it was self-regulation as preferable option to having the government's moral guardians do it, all it arguably did was make it harder to tell some kinds of stories, you could run outlaw if you wanted to but good luck in finding sales space, the system collapsed when both the medium and society evolved past it, and there's still a decent segment of the population looking to bring all of it back, plus three hundred percent.
7183629
And thank you, because that meant I didn't have to say it.
7183744
Demonstration that two unicorns don't have to be touching in order for some degree of sexual contact to take place.
7183806
No, she's just the only one who managed to get a job with the studio. Which may actually be the most unbelievable part. They usually travel in packs.
The new Muppets series had a beautiful moment with this earlier in the year.
The use of tails in this context is, shall we say, substituting.
7183909 Oh, trust me if you're talking about me I'm 18 and therefore my mind is far from innocent. Well, maybe not as bad as some people my age but... yeah, anyway I can't say enough how funny this was.
Okay, if anyone's interested here is the Wikipedia article on the code:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code
Fun little fic, but I think I prefer Iron Will vs. The Penile Code.
7183353 It's the same everywhere.....the biggest perv on the block is the vice crusader.
7183332 Another Hitchcock movie, "North by Northwest", has one scene in a train featuring the main character and his, shall we say, love interest. Shot of them kissing, and then cut to the shot of said train entering a tunnel.
Hitchcock always did like his innuendos. Must have had something to do with his name. Go watch "Rear Window" if you don't believe me. It's crazy how subtly sexual this movie manages to be while still keeping family-friendly status.
7183909
Very similar. But there's a chapter of that story that's not often recognized: the Comics Code saved the superhero genre, which was fading into oblivion in the 50s. The Comics Code killed off the most popular comic books of the day, gorey crime and horror comics that couldn't adapt to the Code. Much as we lament the inanity of Silver Age Superman, without the Code Superman might have followed all the other superheroes out of print, and the Marvel universe might never have started.
So on top of its other crimes the Comics Code is arguably to blame for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
7184168
...wow. Death really was too good for it.
I read all the reviews, then very carefully picked out the showtime I wasn't going to attend.
7184212 let me get my flamethrower.
*Opens mouth. Thinks for a second. Closes it again. Walks away shaking his head after slamming the thumbs up button with his face*
Speaking of film, what will Earth Ponies in your 'verse do when video phones become a thing?
You left out the bit where Mrs. Hays goes on to be a columnist for Murdocks' newspapers. A rallying cry against the immorality of the movie industry...
...that increases ticket sales threefold. So everyone knows exactly what they are outraged by.
Ah. How interesting.
7184738
That does sound about right.
7184734 i can't really speak for the author, but I like to assume they'll break physics.
As usual.
People who see lewdness everywhere ought to be looking within rather than without.
7183353 I just think it's classic psychological projection. They're repressed and self-loathing, but can't own up to it -- so they attack others.
Ah, the good old Hays Code. If I remember correctly, the movies were rated on how contaminated your should would be after watching it, from A (Perfectly fine) to C (If you watch this movie and do not go to confession afterwards, you will go to Hell). So much for the church being separated from from the dealings of the state, am I right?
I am so sorry. I tapped the like button wihthout even thinking. I didn't rleize until it was too late. It was on 69. IT WAS ON 69! Author, do I have permission to unlike to keep it at that glorious number?
7185069 On the contrary, it is our solemn responsibility as FiMFic users to upvote anything sitting at 41, 68, 419 or 665 likes.
Oh, the Hay's Code.
This was a very amusing take on a very ridiculous document, Estee. Well done.
I don't know what the big deal is, the cupcakes remake isn't any worse than the last house on the left.
(please note I have not yet read the story... as I recall my class discussion on the hays code involved the following tweety bird cartoon)
Codes like these usually involve the potential of the material to corrupt those that watch them.
You know a new medium has really taken off when people make either games or porn with it. True fact. There's a whole bunch of sociological theory on that.
Absolutely hilarious!
Also congratulations on 50 stories!
7185279
No I mean Ibliked it so it went from 69 to 70
7185813
I... Guess that means new mediums usually take off in about forty seconds.
I am so proud to be part of such a culturally sensitive species!
7186210
It took slightly longer for the internet. I believe the first pornographic content on the DARPAnet appeared within six months.
OK, maybe I'm making that up. I hear it was a big motivator for the development of the www standard, though.
What, so Chatoyance is finally a pony now?
I read this story and was like "Yeah, okay, what real life thing is this parodying?"
I do find it funny that the actual thing is nicknamed the Hays Code. How pleasingly pre-pony-punned.
7186352
The story originated because I mentioned the Code in my most recent blog post (talking about EQD's Standards and Practices for story acceptance -- I'm getting ready for my first submission there), then immediately realized that it was one of those rare names which translated directly to MLP. After that, it was writing it down to clear the internal queue for something else.
lol, i'm assuming the ponies had sex out of spite right in front of her and then pornos were invented.
I just love how you used so many italics to properly emphasize the moral inequity present before us. Surely, this mare knows what is truly proper and good for all of ponykind!
As a movie history buff, can I just say I love this fanfic so profoundly?
7183909
That's no coincidence. The Comics Code was modelled directly on the older Hays Code. Probably because the kind of person who wants to censor new media is seldom the creative type.
Well, respectable sales space, anyway. Tijuana Bibles were still popular, and there wouldn't have been an Underground Comix (sic) scene without the Comics Code pushing everything counter-culture into the cracks.
And now I'm envisioning a ponified version of R. Crumb.
Although you kind of just did.
As a child, my father tried to impress upon me many of the values held in the Hay's Code, to little avail (obviously). Reading this fic makes me wish that I could have tried to do the same with that total crock, and just kick that racist, homophobic, misogynist, and creedist thinking to the curb. but the fifties were a different time...
7183353 Because she needs a good old fashioned moment of passion on that desk!
7184738 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Victory for Cinema Motherbuckers!
7183629 Thank you HAYS CODE!
7186462 That is exactly what happened. And there were no regrets!
I wrote a critique/review of this story; it can be found over here.