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The first notable form of homosexuality depicted in film was in 1895 between two men dancing together in the William Kennedy Dickson motion picture The Dickson Experimental Sound Film, commonly labeled online and in three published books as The Gay Brothers. Though, at the time, men were not seen this way as queer or even flamboyant, but merely acting fanciful. Film critic Parker Tyler stated that the scene "shocked audiences with its subversion of conventional male behavior". During the late nineteenth century and into the 1920s–30s, homosexuality was largely depicted in gender-based conventions and stereotypes. Oftentimes male characters intended to be identified as gay were flamboyant, effeminate, humorous characters in film. The terms "pansy" and "sissy" became tagged to homosexuality and was described as "a flowery, fussy, effeminate soul given to limp wrists and mincing steps". Because of his high-pitched voice and attitude, the pansy easily transitioned from the silent film era into the talking pictures where those characteristics could be taken advantage of. Male characters were depicted as having effeminate jobs in the work force, creating the stereotype that homosexuals were associated with these careers, which include tailor, hairdresser, choreographers, and many more. It was also during this time that characters in prison were being portrayed at homosexual. While queer male characters became associated as Pansies and sissies, queer female characters were not given a title rather, they were associated with cross dressing, having a deep voice, confusing and emasculating men, and as having a “man’s job”.

During the period of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the cinema audience had decreased significantly. Filmmakers produced movies with themes and images that had high shock-value to get people returning to the theaters. This called for the inclusion of more controversial topics such as prostitution and violence, creating a demand for pansies and their lesbian counterparts to stimulate or shock the audience.With the new influx of these provocative subjects, debates arose regarding the negative effects these films could have on American society.[citation needed]

It was during this same time that the United States Supreme Court ruled that films did not have First Amendment protection, due to the film industry being a business that could be easily used for “evil”, and several local governments passed laws restricting the public exhibition of "indecent" or "immoral" films. The media publicity surrounding several high-profile celebrity scandals and the danger of church-led boycotts also pressured the leadership within the film industry to establish a national censorship board, which became the Motion Picture Production Code.

The Motion Picture Production Code, also simply known as the Production Code or as the "Hays Code", was established both to curtail additional government censorship and to prevent the loss of revenue from boycotts led by the Catholic Church and fundamentalist Protestant groups, as well as judge the moral impact of cinematic Hollywood. In terms of homosexuality, the code marked the end of the "pansy" characters and the beginning of depictions that were more reserved and buried within subtext. While the code did not explicitly state homosexuality as against the code, the code stated no kind of sex perversion, which homosexuality fell under at the time, labeling them as sexual deviants. Despite the code stating that homosexuality was sex perversion, homosexuals came to also be represented as villains or victims, that commit crimes due to their homosexuality. Per the production code these homosexual villains would have to be punished by the law in order to coincide with the production code’s rule stating that films not place crime about law. An example for the enforcement of the production code is the character Joel Cairo in the movie Maltese Falcon. in the original novel the character is clearly homosexual, however in the movie it is vague. The production code not only effected what was cut from movies containing homosexual character, but removed them completely. The stage play, The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman was released as a film in 1936 called These Three. The stage play contained two teachers being accused of having a lesbian affair, yet the film created a heterosexual love triangle between two women and one man. Critics came to favor the Production code as it allowed for unsavory behaviors to be eliminated from the public’s eye, one example included stage play The Children’s Hour and the film These Three. Critics stated that the film was more enjoyable with the absence of the lesbian characters when compared to the original stage play.